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Apr 17, 2023, 15 tweets

Quick thread : What is Prime and why does your child want it?

PRIME is a range of sports drinks, drink mixes, and energy drinks created and marketed by Prime Hydration, LLC

The range is promoted by a Nigerian 🇳🇬/ British YouTuber and an American YouTuber turned boxer

📸@Anele

On January 4, 2022, YouTubers and influencers Logan Paul, who is American, and KSI, who is British announced on a live Instagram feed that they had founded a new drinks company known as Prime Hydration

So who are these guys and why do they matter?

We'll start with Logan. He has about 98 million followers across his social networks - over 23 million subscribers on YouTube - and has ranked on the Forbes list for the highest paid YouTube creators in 2017, 2018, and 2021

He is a signed WWE wrestler having had decent success at the sport growing up and has fought celebrity boxing fights with Floyd Mayweather and others.

While many saw it as a gimmick, the Mayweather fight drew over 1 million Pay Per View buys.

📸 Getty

Born to a Nigerian father and British mother, Olajide Olayinka Williams "JJ" Olatunji (born 19 June 1993), known professionally as KSI, is an English YouTuber, rapper and boxer.

He is a co-founder and member of the British YouTube group known as the Sidemen.

KSI has over 40 million youtube subscribers and over 20 million followers on Instagram and Twitter.

The Sidemen have a combined social media following of roughly 138.7 million and have amassed 37.9 billion total video views.

They are massive

Back to PRIME

There are two variations of the drink. PRIME Hydration and PRIME energy.

The hydration version of Prime is not an energy drink as it does not contain caffeine nor does it contain sugar. Instead, it is sweetened with aspartame.

PRIME Energy drink is a potent energy drink and contains 200mg of caffeine.

For comparison, one mug of instant coffee contains around 100mg of caffeine it comes with a safety warning for under 18's and pregnant / nursing women.

So why do your kids want it and why is it so expensive?

The primary audiences of both KSI and Logan Pal are kids or young adults aged between 13 and 24.

They are also the biggest target audience for PRIME Hydration which has a 34% engagement rate for their social content.

The viral campaigns have seen incredible views.

The two short videos below have a combined 31 million views and one is a direct comparison to a competitor brand.

But the key to the cost is scarcity

With so many kids wanting a taste of PRIME, stocks are constantly in low supply. Whether the company deliberately does this has been debated but is unproven.

Stores in the UK have seen stampedes and even resorted to implementing customer purchase limits.

A black market has even emerged in the UK among kids selling the influencer-fronted drink Prime. Kids unable to find PRIME in stores have driven a resale market with markups exceeding 500%

In South Africa, some @TAKEALOT stores are selling PRIME for north of R1000

Financially, PRIME has been a huge success.

In January, the company made $45 million according Logan Paul and 2022 saw them take in $250 million in retail sales

It's marketed as an energy drink and they aim to drive global growth through partnerships such as being the Official Hydration Partner of both Arsenal and the UFC

PRIME is here and it's growing.

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