Rip It
The Internet's Souped-Up Camry
Research, Digital Strat, UX, Visual Design, Development, 3D + 3D Motion, Social Media
we gave an energy DRINK a jolt of energy.
When we partnered with energy drink Rip It, we realized it was time to rewrite the Zero branding playbook. This was a modernization of a brand whose target audience – called “Rippers” – are hyper-skeptical of marketing. Rip It is a celebration of unapologetic authenticity and taking pleasure in chaos. Rippers by nature raise a middle figure to what culture deems “cool.” In other words, the standard rules did not apply.
Our first order of business was to absorb the Ripper mentality. A group that includes gamers, construction workers, musicians, cowboys, drivers, skateboarders, and hikers who would scoff at anything cool, trendy, hip, or overly polished.
Rip It is that guy that shows up to your BBQ in beat up Converse, rips a keg stand, and disappears on a side quest. The challenge energized us.
We needed to modernize Rip It’s web and social media presence to increase cultural relevancy in key markets.
The brand world Zero articulated digitally has an underlying theme of pleasure in chaos. With Rip It’s can designs and unhinged flavor names being the most defining and iconic part of the brand, these aesthetics informed the overall look and feel of the website.
The revamped site positions Rip It as an everyday energy drink infused with individuality and fun, coming through in the highlighting of intense flavor offerings, vibrant color blocking, and bold typography. Full send, baby!
To support e-comm efforts, we needed to increase time on site and showcase full product lineup, while playing up the brand’s full-send energy and unserious, informal edge.
Our answer was large and in charge PDPs, sick can-crushing animations on scroll, and a custom-made video game of an alien rippin’ through the wild west on a skateboard 👽🤘
We were also tasked with contributing content to Rip It’s social presence, with the specific goal of re-engaging
18-24 year old males on the brand’s channels.
Tapping into an unpretentious, “we don’t give a rip” mindset, we celebrated unapologetic authenticity and gave a middle finger toward everything that’s “cool” through a deep-fried meme strategy that hit different with our audience.
The baseline social playbook did not resonate with this audience – a subset hyper skeptical of advertising and branding as a whole. Our meme strategy was grounded in having an “outsider” point of view, and understanding what makes this audience segment laugh was crucial.
We weren’t shy. With flavor names like 3-Way and LeMoan’R, meme creation was ripe for absurdist content that was widely sharable among our target audience.
In the end, Zero delivered over 80+ pieces of content, helping the Rip It team achieve 240K+ reach, 620K+ views, and 15K+ profile visits.
To round-out visuals, our content studio delivering 3D product renders utilized across the website and in social media.
Given the brand’s “We don’t give a rip” ethos, we took our perfect 3D rendering of the can and do to it what so many consumers do -- crush it. It adds an element of the real, while enhancing the web experience on our product detail pages. It’s something few brands would have the guts to do. But Rip it? Heck yeah.