Rodney Sacks: Hi.
Mark Astrachan: Just one follow-up on one other question. So if you look at the scanner data, we look at total distribution points for Bang, I show it’s up something like 22% at current levels or kind of a week or two ago relative to where it was even in September. So you had mentioned helping that, I think, the rollout in September was a bit more measured. So I suppose why shouldn’t we get a little more excited about what you can do from shelf space in terms of where it was? I guess it’s never going to be what it was a few years ago, but certainly seems like it’s on a good starting level there. And then, the main question, we are getting lots of questions and I am sure you are about how to think about pricing and what Red Bull is going to do in the market.
I guess, how long does it take for you to figure out how much pricing Red Bull is going to pass-through and how quickly or when you have to tell the retail establishments that you are planning on following them if you decide to do that? Thanks.
Rodney Sacks: Well, generally when you have a price increase in our industry, it takes 60 days to 90 days to get pricing adjusted in the U.S. market. I think where we are is, we are evaluating the competition, and obviously, we are reevaluating Red Bull and their pricing and we will see where it goes. They took — because of promotions they took a lot less in 2022 than was originally expected. So I think we just watching for what happens with demand and the elasticity of demand and we are in a really difficult consumer environment, not necessarily for energy drinks as you have heard on this call. But I think we have to be very wary and watch and see and we will evaluate what makes sense for us and time we will make a decision.
I mean we have always said that if there is an opportunity to take price, we will, but we are also very cognizant of the fact that, we don’t want to lose a bunch of market share in the process. And then, Mark, you referred earlier to Bang, and yes, the Coke bottlers during the month of September got Bang back in as many shelves as they were authorized to get product back. And yes, of course, there was an increase in September, but — and October, and we will continue seeing the development of Bang as we get more and more shelf space authorized to — for the brand. But as always, we don’t give guidance on these calls and but I will just say that, we are all optimistic here about the future and the potential of the brand otherwise we wouldn’t have done the acquisition.
Operator: The next question is from Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Michael Lavery: Thank you. Good afternoon.
Rodney Sacks: Hi. Just was wondering if you could give a sense of strategically how you think about the portfolio. In the US, you have got the share headwinds are greater for the Monster brand versus some others. Maybe just how do you think about resource allocation or trying to push to protect and strengthen that brand, what kind of margin mix implications are there or is it just anything under the total corporate umbrella is — if it it’s got momentum is great. Just give us good a little sense of how you think about the portfolio, strategy and how much — how important it is for Monster to take the lead or not?
Rodney Sacks: I think Monster has always been our lead brand and will continue to be the lead brand. So, ultimately, we focus on Monster itself. And then, we look at the broader portfolio, we look at the category. The category has got grown in the last couple of years and it’s much, much broader than it was and so we think that Monster’s positioning should stay as it is, it’s got — its positioning, it’s got its authenticity and credibility for what it stands for and it can’t be everything to all consumers. And that’s why these other brands play a really important role for the company and enable us to actually attack other parts of the category, other consumers who have different values and have different need states, whether it’s from NOS to Reign.
You saw the results of Reign have increased and sales have really been very healthy. So that brand is doing very well with its positioning, which is different to the positioning we have got for Rainstorm. And then, the same thing that, as Hilton mentioned earlier, we have sort of — we have taken the positioning of — for Bang as sort of more of a lifestyle brand. Again, it has its own positioning. The cans, as you know, in the last few years has changed from being a black can, more performance orientated to be a white can, more lifestyle orientated. So there are different positionings, different price points, we think that we will get incremental space for these other brands in joining coolers or additional coolers space, where you are having the — where you are finding more space being allocated to the clean energy or natural or sort of healthier perception energy brands.
As you — also look at sizes, Rainstorm is in a 12-ounce cans versus our traditional Reign brand in a 60-ounce black can. So these are ways that we are able to distinguish these different products and find a place for each of them on the shelf and to attract different consumers. And so, if you look at the whole portfolio, we think it actually fits together quite nicely and we see growth coming from all of these different levels, but still 100% our main brand remains and our focus is obviously Monster, which is the driver for the company and will continue to be so.
Hilton Schlosberg: Rodney, I think, one other point for Michael is that, if — Mike, you need to look at the numbers, because, I think, Red Bull is suffering far worse than Monster and the — I think that’s something you need to look at. That’s number one. And number two, a number of our analysts are — and we have noticed this as of late, are taking the Bang numbers and putting the Bang numbers into Monster, both this year and last year. And obviously, that’s not a great exercise, because Bang has — Bang share and Bang sales have fallen off dramatically over the last year, particularly through all this litigation and with the removal from shelves and the discontinuations as I mentioned earlier. So that’s not a good exercise to put the Bang brand into Monster this year and last year.
So what we did on this call, we actually separated Bang separately and the rest of the portfolio so one could get a feel of the performance of the Monster portfolio separately from what’s happening with Bang. Hopefully, sometime down the line we will be able to roll the two into one another and then it will make better sense of growth or otherwise.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Sacks for any closing remarks.
Rodney Sacks: Thanks. On behalf of the company, I’d like to thank everyone for their continued interest in the company. We continue to believe in the company and our growth strategy and remain committed to continuing to innovate, develop and differentiate our brands and to expand the company both at home and abroad. And in particular capitalizing on our relationship with the Coca-Cola bottler system. We believe that we are well-positioned in the beverage industry and continue to be optimistic about the future of our company. We hope that you remain safe and healthy. Thank you very much for your attendance.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
