Johannesburg - A month after being forced to stop the production of Mad Bull, Rizo Investments said yesterday its new bottled energy drink Mad Buzz was already on the shelves.
Rizo was barred in December by the high court from using the Bull trademark, after it was accused by the producer of rival energy drink Red Bull of "riding on the coat-tails" of its product.
Rizo Investments said yesterday it was now working on a R5 million to R6 million budget strategy to market, advertise and rebrand Mad Bull as Mad Buzz.
Brian Altriche, the chief executive of Rizo Investments, said his company had already begun the process of repackaging Mad Bull into relabelled bottles at a cost of about R250 000.
He said the rebranding and refocusing of Mad Bull had happened at a "bad time", around the festive season.
"It was difficult for Rizo Investments to get labels to change the barred product."
However, Altriche said the rebranding of the energy drink was a blessing in disguise.
"People are happy with the product and I believe it created the buzz we were aiming for as a company," he said.
Mad Buzz had been positively received by its clients and customers, Altriche said.
"Mad Buzz has had a 100 percent acceptance rate since its availability on the shelves in December."
But Rizo Investments still had a lot of work to do on the relabelling process.
"We have destroyed Mad Bull labels and those energy drinks that were on the shelves have been pasted with Mad Buzz labels," said Altriche.
Red Bull's head of communications, Arun Hozack, said media reports on the final court resolution had uniformly focused on the disappointment felt by Rizo Investments.
"There was not a single word mentioned by media reports about the morality of the approach Rizo adopted."
Hozack said the media omitted that Red Bull had invested R200 million in South Africa with the establishment of its brand. The media reports also potentially undermined the creation of 250 permanent jobs and another 200 jobs in line distribution and support services, he said.