face="Times New Roman">Tom Lines, early investor in FRS who took sole control of quercetin-based brand after $100-mil-plus in sales/marketing efforts by prior mgmt teams failed to ignite, is taking deliberate route to relaunch, recruiting Iteration Media for consumer deep dive and brand rethink and mixologist Alex Ott to reformulate liquid, even as he gets ready to bring back Nutrisoda functional soda brand in coming weeks.

FRS, of course, is brand that became poster child for how to expend vast sums of investors' capital with little to show for it in brand awareness or sales, despite clinically based evidence that core ingredient, quercetin, carries powerful benefits. Lines, who was among those who ponied up what he said amounted to $150 mil thru numerous rounds over a decade, said he never lost faith in brand and last year claimed control via deal that calls for him to continue significant investments in line. He also controls quercetin provider Quercegen, which operates separately.

Since taking control of FRS last year, Tom has focused on stabilizing and rethinking brand, raising price 70% to $78 per month for regimen users, dropping free shipments to influencers and making plans to reformulate line with twice the quercetin level (BBI, Sep 9). Price hike scared off some users for a few months, but many came back, he said yesterday. He's fortified line with pair of items under different brand name, Q-Force. He's also brought aboard new-age vet Bob Miller to help rebuild distribution, retained social media Iteration Media to delve into makeup of current user base and recruited high-profile mixologist Ott to reformulate line. (Alex had played similar role at Mercy hangover prevention bevs a few years ago.) Iteration, whose clients have included Monster Energy, Three Olives Vodka and Under Armour, pulled some surprising insights out of deep dive, finding, to Lines' pleasant surprise, that it's got ardent cohort of younger users age 16-to-30, tilting about two-thirds male. So he's inaugurated Millennial Initiative to figure out ways to build that tie. Some have made FRS a replacement even for their morning coffee, and many drink FRS powder as hot bev like tea. Tho RTD bevs were fulcrum of effort to go big in past, they're currently smallest part of biz, but once reformulation is complete, Lines and Miller will go out to re-recruit DSD distributors and open marketing spigot. After earlier mgmt team pulled brand from DSD houses for unsuccessful move into Pepsi refrigerated system, Lines has been strenuously avowing his commitment to DSD, promising to offer partners long-term protection. "You can count on it," he avowed yesterday.

Then there's matter of brand name, FRS, which had proved unmemorable to consumers despite heavy media push, even as its full name, "free-radical scavenger," was confusing and difficult to explain. Given committed base of online buyers, there was no question of dropping FRS moniker entirely, but Lines had said he was open to replacing it for retail products, possibly with that Q-Force name (the Q stands for quercetin, and name lends itself to come-ons like "Are you on Q?"). Figuring that out was key mandate for Initiative Media. Conclusion? It's not final, but inclination is to stick with FRS, particularly after overseas partners who were polled about FRS, Q-Force and other names unanimously voted for FRS. So co hopes to figure out a way to make name stickier, perhaps with slogans like "Get the free radical before it gets you."

As for NutriSoda, recall that functional soda line was launched by ex-pharma exec in Twin Cities named Joe Heron as Airforce NutriSoda and sold to regional bottler PepsiAmericas, whose incubation effort never ignited. Joe went on to create successful Crispin hard cider brand, now owned by MillerCoors, and then brandy play. As new owner of Nutrisoda, Lines has reformulated it with Reb-D variety of stevia that overcomes aftertaste issues of natural sweetener and is putting it back into production in Jul. That too will be offered to DSD partners, as will be another venture, Lines' relaunched sugar-beet-based Black Death Vodka, once a big brand in Russia and recently pitched to US spirits houses at Las Vegas expo. So, while operating under radar, Tom has developed pretty varied portfolio.

(BBI editor recently delved into branding conundrums like FRS' in his monthly BevNet column, which can be found here: http://www.bevnet.com/magazine/issue/2016/a-brand-by-any-other-name )