BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – JUNE 09: Payton Pritchard #11 of the Boston Celtics reacts after his made three-point basket against the Dallas Mavericks to end the third quarter in Game Two of the 2024 NBA Finals at TD Garden on June 09, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)
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At every turn, Lucky Energy has beaten the odds. They’ve done so through an authenticity that resonates with the commonalities shared by people from all different walks of life. They also stand out in the energy drink industry by giving consumers a healthy alternative they can feel good about using as fuel.
Still in its infancy, Richard Laver founded this rapidly rising company in 2023. Laver was the youngest survivor of a plane crash that killed 136 passengers, including his father. The FAA considered his survival impossible.
He was homeless, living on a beach, with just $22. Rather than giving up, he used that money to get to California. There, he built a life for himself and started a family. But again, adversity struck.
Doctors diagnosed Laver’s daughter, who had cerebral palsy, with “failure to thrive.” The shake he made for her with their home blender helped save her life and benefited tens of thousands of people. From there, Lucky Energy was born. Its purpose: to help defy the odds.
Why Lucky Energy resonates with so many
While discussing Lucky Energy’s ability to resonate with people from all different walks of life, Hamid Saify, their CMO, pointed to the gripping nature of that origin story.
“The idea of a founder who survived a plane crash, who has gone through a lot of turmoil and ups and downs in his life, to be able to come back and succeed and persevere, is a story that we felt like a lot of groups can really rally behind,” Saify told Forbes. “And so we kind of planted our flag around that, which is really, really important for us because brands need to make you feel something today or you’re literally irrelevant, right?
“You can have the best product in the world, but if you’re not getting people to feel something, whether it pulls on the heartstrings, or if it motivates you, or if it makes you laugh, and I really feel like the best brands do a couple of things really, really well. And so, the first kind of origin, [the] initial thing that we built out was around, ‘OK, let’s tell this story of survival and perseverance.’ And then, as we did that, so much of this brand is about seizing the moment and taking advantage of every day that you have. Cause no day is given to you; not taking anything for granted.”
The heartbreaking roots of Lucky Energy’s inception are a vehicle to maximize marketing, as the company turns tragedy into triumph. However, being more dynamic than that is a vital part of their growth.
Lucky Energy’s refreshing blend of humor and healing
People need levity. Laughter is a therapeutic way to help relieve the stress encountered daily. While one might not expect a company that makes an energy drink to help with that, Lucky Energy recognizes the importance of it and sees it as another way to separate itself.
“Let’s just make the most of life, and that means we enjoy our moments with our friends, we laugh,” Saify told Forbes. “And so comedy has also been the second part of the brand that we’ve really leaned into, the reverent side, the more rebellious side of the brand — around telling even these perseverance stories, through the lens of comedy.”
Even through that scope, they’re providing a refreshing blend of humor and healing.
“We signed Greg Oden, and we did a campaign over the summer with him. Greg Oden: one of the most tragic NBA stories that you can imagine. Being picked before Kevin Durant, it’s a tough spot to be in. But we wanted to retell his story, and we did that through something that was a little bit more inspirational,” said Saify.
They also created a second spot. That played off a video where a grandma challenges the former Buckeyes star. She comes up to him on Ohio State’s campus and asks the seven-foot center, “Do you play basketball?” Undaunted by her competition’s size and physique, she confidently claims she can beat him. Oden laughs and walks away, his face turning stoic.
Luck Energy recreated that moment, but with a twist.
“We actually had a grandma come and play Greg Oden, but rather than the grandma beating him, Greg just dusts the floor with her and wipes the floor with her. So, we feel like the kind of brand that we’re building is something that can lean into quite a bit of things that pull at people and make them feel something in a way that they haven’t felt before, especially in the energy category,” shared Saify.
Lucky Energy partners with Payton Pritchard
Beyond Greg Oden, the company has found an ideal partner in NBA players who share their status as the underdog, fighting to persevere. They’ve collaborated with Minnesota Timberwolves center Naz Reid, who went from undrafted to the Sixth Man of the Year.
“We felt like, for our audience, that typically buys at convenience stores, where 80 percent of energy drinks are sold at convenience stores, it indexed really high for NBA fans,” said Saify. “And so we leaned into that early on. But Richard, our founder — his story of surviving a plane crash and building the life that he’s built for himself — we’ve told his story, but it was very important for us to lean into people who also had underdog stories and came back from something. So the first — when we were looking at initial talent, we’re a small brand and we didn’t have a huge, huge paycheck. We can never outcompete on spend.
“And Naz just came off an insane year. No one thought he would make it in the league. He was a little bit overweight, undrafted, to what he built, and the kind of loyal following that he’s built in Minnesota. He’s a cult legend basically. And so we were like, ‘OK, Naz represents what we represent: underdog, people counted him out, and look what he’s done for himself and what he’s built for himself. So, Naz was like the first foray.”
Now, they’re teaming with Payton Pritchard.
Payton Pritchard and Lucky Energy is a partnership rooted in two underdogs who are defying the odds.
Lucky Energy
The Boston Celtics’ undersized guard once found himself on the outside of the team’s rotation, often confined to the bench. It’s a level of adversity many aren’t accustomed to when they reach the NBA. The mental anguish of it can be too much to overcome.
However, Pritchard pushed through. He kept believing in himself, stayed the course, and went on to follow in Reid’s footsteps, earning Sixth Man of the Year honors last season. Now, he’s starting in Boston’s backcourt.
“Sure, it can be a mental test, but how do you strive every day?” Pritchard told Forbes during an exclusive interview as he was about to receive that award. “I looked at every day as an opportunity to keep getting better and better, knowing that my opportunity was still ahead. When I had that opportunity, I was going to take full advantage of it.”
That’s what made him a perfect match to partner with Lucky Energy.
“We started thinking of like, ‘OK, we don’t represent the LeBrons and the Giannis’s of the world, we really represent the underdogs,” stated Saify. “So part of me was like, ‘OK, we’ll, we’re going to sign the next Sixth Man of the Year. And so that’s how Payton came about, because he was leading the polls for Sixth Man of the Year for the majority of the year last year.
“We’re like, ‘Payton would be huge,’ and then Payton also really worked well for us because we have a great distributor partner in the Massachusetts, New England area called Polar. We’ve got retail partners up in Boston, and it was a really important market for us, and he is a beloved figure. I mean, he represents that city so well. So, that’s how Payton came to be.”
Why Payton Pritchard chose Lucky Energy
Pritchard plays in a major market on a storied franchise with a global brand. Beyond that, he helped them win a championship. Finding off-court partnerships isn’t a problem. The focus is, of course, on identifying the ones that resonate with him.
Fortunately for Lucky Energy, both sides saw the synergy that makes this an ideal pairing.
“It was really organic, honestly,” Pritchard told Forbes of how this collaboration came together. “We have a lot of similarities. The brand is built on grit and toughness, and they want to partner with — kind of an underdog, like myself. [A] person who has a chip on their shoulder, as does Lucky. So, I thought it was a perfect match.”
For that to be the case, it had to be a product he would genuinely endorse. When asked why, with so many options available, Lucky Energy is the right choice to fuel him through his workouts, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year quickly pointed to it being a healthy alternative.
“First of all, the ingredients are good, zero sugars, zero calories, but for me as an athlete, I’m always looking for like simple ingredients, clean ingredients, so, obviously, that’s very important to me,” stated Pritchard, who enjoys the variety of flavors Lucky Energy offers but cited cherry pop as his favorite.
That’s also why Lucky Energy is quickly becoming the energy drink people are reaching for. They don’t just have a backstory that makes them easy to root for, or know how to make you laugh; their product is a healthy alternative in a space lacking options of that nature.
“I think from a product perspective, we’ve positioned on zero sugar, zero calories, five super ingredients, and the general thing for how we saw the market was, a lot of energy drinks have a lot of artificial ingredients and quite a bit of artificial ingredients,” shared Saify. “So, we focus on cleaner, better for you, and simplicity. So, our drinks have 33 percent fewer ingredients than the typical energy drink. So, more product perspective. People really love that we have less in there, which is great. More ingredients they can pronounce, which people love.”
With people from all walks of life in mind, from professional athletes to construction workers, nurses, and everyone in between, Lucky Energy is constantly refining its formula to strike the perfect balance between healthy ingredients and a beverage people enjoy.
“In a lot of cases, with a lot of energy brands, you definitely get this nice peak from the initial caffeine rush, and then, a lot of brands make you get that crash feeling,” said Saify. “I remember, when I first had my first Lucky, I just felt a very sustained, and clean, and smooth energy throughout. And the way that the product’s been formulated is [that] a lot of the ingredients are dosed down a little bit. So, we have 200 milligrams of caffeine, and a lot of energy brands have 200 milligrams of caffeine. It just — as the kids say — it just hits different. It’s way smoother and sustained energy delivery, which is one of the reasons why fitness people really love the brand. It’s not this crazy high and then this crazy crash afterwards.
“So we’re very mindful around dosing the ingredients in our five super ingredients in a way where you just feel clean, sustained energy throughout. And we’ve been able to really pull that off. And then, I think as we got more feedback from the community, we’ve been tinkering with our formulation since we started. We’ve been making things taste better; we’ve been enhancing things here and there. So, we’ve been getting a lot of customer feedback, where people have been like, ‘This tastes amazing.’ But for us, we felt like we could continue to enhance it and make it even better.
“So, products for us is never like a “set it and forget it” thing. It’s an ongoing thing in the same way that we look at marketing or we look at our financial reports. We always want to make sure that we’re delivering the best product for people. And so far, we’ve seen that pay off in terms of the kind of sales that we’re doing on the digital side; over 50 percent of people [are] repeating and purchasing again. The kind of retailers that have said yes to us after trying the product and seeing the brand. So, I think we’re at the genesis of something that will be extremely big.”
What’s next for Lucky Energy?
As the company partners with Pritchard and accelerates East Coast growth, they’ve made Boston a priority market.
“As part of our Payton program, we’ve been selling in Boston since the beginning of the year, and we’ve got some really strong velocities there,” Saify told Forbes. “And so, now, we’re going to go even heavier with this Payton campaign throughout the spring. So, we’ve got out of home stuff, we’ve got a couple of video campaigns that we’re launching with Payton,” — the first one launched on Friday. “We’re going to be doing some out-of-home in that market. Payton’s got an in-store appearance. We’re going to be doing a ton of stuff in-store with Payton POS and standees.
Payton Pritchard and Lucky Energy is a partnership rooted in two underdogs who are defying the odds.
Lucky Energy
“And the retailers that we’re really supporting there are Shaw’s and Star Market,” continued Saify. “They’ve been really good partners to us. They continue to be really good partners to us, and that’s the way I think that we think about — as we get into these local markets and really plant our flag there, we want to do it in a way that feels native to the city. We want to pick and work with people who are beloved in that city. That people follow and represent the city really well, and obviously represent Lucky really well.”
Beyond Boston and the East Coast, everyone is looking to better themselves. People want to feel good about what they’re consuming and for it to provide positive fuel as they pursue their goals. When a company can offer that, there is no limit to what it can achieve.
“I think our future is, this is a big, big, big category,” voiced Saify. “It’s a huge category, and we feel like we’re just at the tip of the iceberg. So, I think the future for us is more national expansion [and] bigger and bigger retailers. Our goal, ultimately, is to be within 1 to 2 miles of you. You could pick up a Lucky Energy anywhere in the country.
“We’re in about 17,000 stores right now, which is really amazing for a brand that’s only two years old. But for us, it’s like we want to really get out there. Continue to spread the message of the brand. Continue to provide people with an opportunity to get Lucky, and do these random acts of Lucks out there in the market. And yeah, just continue to deliver an amazing product and amazing brand to people.”
