RXBar's Rebranding

Peter Rahal shares how rebranding RXBar led to explosive growth in sales and market penetration.

"We timed the rebranding with retail. There was a year before the $161 million in revenue that was $36 million. That was basically getting into early adopters of food retail, like Wegmans and Publix, these regional ones that are really high quality. Once that worked, the larger ones adopted. So it went from $36 million to $161 million.

The output of our design is very simple. We had a name problem - RX meant prescription in the mass market, but in CrossFit, it meant doing something of a high standard. We minimized the logo and name. When we formulated a product with minimal ingredients, the only thing that mattered to people was when they flipped over the back. It'd be like eating 3 egg whites, 2 dates, 6 almonds, 4 cashews. That back-of-label thing was a value communication.

We were in protein no man's land - the market was at 20 grams, we're at 12 grams of protein. But if you just lead with egg whites, that creates a lot of consumer surplus. When you go shopping for breakfast and get egg whites, you get charged a premium. So egg whites are associated with premium, quality, and being more expensive. That was a great way to communicate value and surplus."