Guru Organic Energy is going all-in on plant-based with its latest shopper campaign, even using plant markers typically seen in garden centres as QR codes for prizing.

“Made in Plants” is the point of sale component of its recently unveiled “With Plants” campaign, which aimed to show how its plant-based energy drink gives people the fuel to accomplish their day-to-day goals.

The large-scale shopper activation program includes a contest that allows customers to win a trip to the Amazon by scanning QR codes on tags similar to those on vegetables and flowers. Mainly aimed at convenience and gas channels, campaign elements includes dual shippers, cooler clings, danglers, posters and headers, all of which prioritize its “good energy” proposition, as well as the newly launched Guayusa Tropical Punch SKU.

Isabelle Hache, partnerships, events and trade marketing director at Guru, tells strategy the flavour, new to the English market, is being put front and centre, given it’s already been a hit with Quebeckers since launching in the fall. 

According to Hache, Tropical Punch is a feature SKU for the campaign partially because Guru’s unique selling proposition is its plant-based nature. The can design was inspired by its “yellowish” ingredients including passion fruit, guava, jack fruit, and Hache says that Guru wanted a dynamic, refreshing appetite appeal that represented hot weather and energy of the tropics.

With a lot of negative connotations around energy drinks, the brand is also using “crap free” verbiage in its shopper marketing, as it’s done in some of its OOH, as a cheeky way to convey its better-for-you proposition.

Hache says the energy drinks category is doing really well and the brand is hoping to capitalize on recent interest as it continues to expand west from its home province of Quebec.

“Our goal is to gain awareness across the country…and be able to communicate its product differentiation, that it’s not another energy drink, but a natural energy drink,” she says.

Mark IV did the shopper elements for the campaign, based on creative Sid Lee developed for the above-the-line “With Plants” campaign. It is in market until the end of May.