Based on the following articles, identify and discuss the consumer decision making process in detail using the following steps: 1. Problem recognition of an unfulfilled need, 2. Information search, 3. Evaluation of alternatives, 4. Purchase, 5. Post-purchase behaviour.

Checkers launched the PRIME hydration drink line of beverages to much fanfare on Monday, with each 500ml bottle selling for R39.99. PRIME grabbed headlines in mid-April when well-known broadcasters Leanne Manas and Anele Mdoda posted on Twitter about kids pestering their parents about it, and its high domestic price. Mdoda later posted a picture showing an Engen forecourt selling the drink for an eye-watering R479.90 per 500ml bottle. Just over a week later, Shoprite announced that it would launch the beverage at 237 stores nationwide. We bought and tasted all four flavours available through Checkers Ice Pop, Lemon Lime, Blue Raspberry, and Tropical Punch. All of the drinks were extremely sweet, despite the relatively low levels of sugar content. According to the ingredients list, PRIME relies on sucralose and acesulfame potassium to get its hyper-sweet taste. Our testers notes on each flavour are summarised below.

• Ice Pop Smells slightly of marzipan or almond paste and tastes almost like an extremely sweet effervescent vitamin tablet after it stops fizzing.
• Lemon Lime Tastes like Mountain Dew without the bubbles. One tester said, Wow, thats sweet. Its nice just too sweet.
• Blue Raspberry Tastes like an extremely sweet version of the aloe-flavoured drinks you can buy for under R20 per bottle.
• Tropical Punch Tastes basically like the Ice Pop flavour, just coloured red using carrot extract.

Several PRIME flavours are still unavailable through Checkers: Grape, Meta Moon, Orange, and Strawberry Watermelon. Aside from noting the drinks sweetness, the consensus among testers was that they were average and not worth the premium price relative to products like Energade, Lucozade, Powerade, and various aloe-flavoured drinks. Checkers private label and imports head Renaldo Phillips also noted that they currently only stock the sports hydration drink, not PRIMEs energy drink variant. Speaking to 702 on Tuesday, he assured that should they choose to carry the energy drink, it would not be marketed at children. Phillips also said the response theyve received from shoppers to PRIME is unlike anything he has ever seen. It truly shows where weve gone as a society; the power of social media, said Phillips. Everyone Ive spoken to, retailers that have been around for 30 years [have] never seen anything like this. It really, really has blown our mind[s]. Economist and trend analyst Bronwyn Williams told the radio station she wouldnt be surprised if the initial R480 price was part of a larger marketing strategy. She explained that it set an anchor price, which made the R40 price point look cheap by comparison. Williams also said that part of the excitement around the brand in the weeks before Checkers announced its launch was its exclusivity. Having a bottle of PRIME conferred a form of social status, she said. Teenagers, like all human beings, but particularly younger people, are very susceptible to phenomena such as mimesis, which really refers to the fact that we want what other people want and in particular, we want what other perceived to be high-status people want, she told EWN. With PRIME becoming more accessible, it is effectively eating its own tail and eroding its position as a high-status brand. However, its pricing and lack of general availability were only part of the story. The exclusivity wouldve meant nothing had PRIME not been associated with celebrities Logan Paul and Olajide KSI Olatunji both YouTubers and social media influencers. PRIME is manufactured by Congo Brands, a company co-owned by American businessmen Max Clemons and Trey Steiger. Although Paul and Olatunji claimed to have founded the company, they appear to merely be its promoters. Neither Paul nor Olatunji are listed as registered agents for PRIME Hydration, LLC in the United States. They also arent listed as controlling shareholders of Prime Hydration UK. Paul is from the US, and Olatumji is from the UK. Despite this, the Congo Brands website states that PRIME was founded by the pair of social media megastars. It also says that Congo Brands was developed to create synergies between the independent brands theyve co-founded over the years. Brands in the Congo portfolio may have ownership beyond Trey and Max, however, they do provide key insights into the operations of each brand. Paul has frequently courted controversy, including a trip to Japan in December 2017, where he was accused of behaving disrespectfully. He also received heavy criticism after seeking and then apparently filming a dead body in a known suicide forest. Most recently, YouTuber and investigative reporter Stephen Coffeezilla Findeisen accused Paul of scamming his fans through an NFT and cryptocurrency project called CryptoZoo. Paul initially threatened to sue Findeisen, but later apologised and promised to do right by his fans that invested in the project. PRIME hydration has become a viral sensation in South Africa, and even though the scarcity aspect of its popularity has dissipated thanks to Checkers launching it widely, the buzz around the brand has not died down. Checkers made the hydration drink widely available in South Africa on 1 May, launching the drink in four flavours at over 250 stores. The wide availability has also reduced the price to just R40 after some trendsetters forked over as much as R700 to get their hands on the bottle. PRIMEs launch in South Africa has been met with hype and confusion in equal measure. On the one hand, it is being hailed as a marketing goldmine, with the viral nature of its scarcity and then wider launch leading to the drink being sold out sometimes within hours. On the other hand, some curious consumers looking to get in on the trend have found that the drink isnt all that good, making it difficult to understand the fuss. Local brands have also picked up on this. Creator of local energy drink Mofaya Energy, DJ Sbu, caught attention this week by describing PRIME as nothing special. However, he followed it up with statements that he was impressed with the brands launch and marketing power in the country. Other brands have been more vocal. One in particular Slayer Energy posted to social media platform Instagram, calling out PRIME as overhyped and positing that local alternatives are much better. In its post, Slayer challenged anyone to run a blind taste test, saying that the winner would be clear. BusinessTech decided to take up the challenge. The difficulty in pitting PRIME against any local brands is that they do not play in the exact same space. While PRIME does have an energy counterpart, this is not (yet) available in South Africa. The PRIME hydration drink on store shelves resembles a more traditional sports drink like Powerade and Energade and lacks the caffeine punch. Slayer, meanwhile, plays in the same space as Red Bull, Monster and the myriad of other caffeinated energy drinks South Africans can find in abundance on store shelves. However, Slayers flavour profile is much milder and more akin to a soda or juice with a bit of a caffeine kick. Having tasted both, its clear that these drinks are all playing very closely together in the same ballpark and if were going to go on taste, were not going to let a little bit of caffeine get in the way of us finding the best flavour. The BusinessTech team took on Slayers challenge and not only blind taste-tested PRIME and one of Slayers popular variants but we tasted and scored every single sports and energy drink we could find, including DJ Sbus Mofaya. Going against all reasonable medical advice, we ended up trying out 21 different brands. The team was invited to taste and score each drink out of 10 and to leave a comment on their overall experiences. After aggregating and averaging the scores, we come out with a clear winner. The table below is the definitive BusinessTech ranking of the drinks and a more detailed write-up can be found below:

Rank	Drink	Score (/10)
1	Monster Energy	7.45
2	Powerade Sports	6.77
3	Predator Energy	6.73
4	Energade Sports	6.68
5=	MoFaya Energy	6.41
5=	Score Energy	6.41
7	Punch Energy	6.27
8=	Slayer Energy	6.14
8=	Red Bull Energy	6.14
10=	Power Play Energy	6.05
10=	Dragon Energy	6.05
12	Energade Boost Energy	5.73
13=	Move Energy	5.68
13=	OSHEE Sports	5.68
15	PRIME Sports	5.41
16	aQuelle Sports	5.36
17	Bioplus Energy	5.27
18	ReBoost Energy	5.18
19	Lucozade Energy	4.82
20	Switch Energy	4.50
21	aQuelle Energy	3.14

The best: Monster Energy

Monster is a globally-recognised brand with roots in South Africa. Two South African billionaires expats Rodney Sacks and Hilton Schlosberg bought Hansen Natural Corporation in the early 1990s. Along with the acquisition, they got Monster Energy. Its unsurprising then that many local brands are vying for the same success. Some of our taste testers immediately recognised the Monster flavour in the blind tests, showing how distinct it is and how it managed to set itself apart from the rest. The standout feature is its sweetness and the lack of a lingering aftertaste that leads to bitterness. Our resident energy drink sommelier described the flavour as minerally juicy, with a pleasant taste which cant be said of its competitors.

The worst: aQuelle Energy

The aQuelle brand is most known for mineral water, not for energy drinks so it was quite surprising to find an energy variant at our local convenience store. The drink is not carbonated, so it felt like a flat Red Bull to some of our tasters. Fittingly, the flavour was watered down and weak, while a recurring theme was that it simply had an unpleasant aftertaste. The most scathing commentary described it as urinal cake water and simply vile. Our resident sommelier said the flavour was deeply medicinal and flat, with a bitter aftertaste. A harsh punishment for a disappointing initial taste.

The trendsetters: PRIME, Slayer and Mofaya

PRIME ended up being easily identifiable in the blind taste test, but thats not to say it was for the right reasons. The newest drink on the block was highly divisive among the tasters, drawing extreme scores on either end of the scale, indicating a love it or hate it relationship. Tasters agreed that the flavouring is very sweet, and that the aftertaste is quite strong. Those who liked it described it as pleasant and likeable. Those who did not said: Rather punch me in the face. Opinions are divided. Our resident sommelier said: Tastes like an almond croissant with a weird aftertaste. Marzipan. A bit strange, but likeable. Slayer, who posed the challenge, ended up with a fair score ranking the exact same as Red Bull. Slayer doesnt have a standard flavour and mixes up its tastes each month with a mystery box sold on its site (currently the only place you can grab it). It positions itself as an energy drink that tastes like a soda and thats the general consensus reached among the tasters, who described it as smooth with good flavour and not too sweet. Some found the flavour too weak and watered down, but overall, the likeness to an effervescent fruit juice was common. Given the fact that Slayer is also sugar-free (the only type available) scoring this high among the sugar-filled drinks is quite a feat. Taste aside, Slayer had the most striking design for its cans, which goes a long way in selling the product. Among the trendsetters, DJ Sbus MoFaya came out at the top, ranking fifth overall. MoFaya is making waves in South Africa, with a strong following among its founders fans. But the drink may also become another big South African export, having secured FDA approval for sale in the United States. The tasters enjoyed the flavour, though found it indistinct. Some described it as needing mo flava, while others said it was nice tasting. Our sommelier, however, really enjoyed it, saying that it was his favourite. This is the best one. Sweet and honey-like, he said.

Authors view

In conducting the test, three things became apparent. The first is that most of the energy drinks, particularly in their base or original flavours likely guarana are all similar enough that the differences between them are negligible. We didnt venture into tasting the myriad of variants at hand, and Im sure many consumers have their favourite distinct flavours. Secondly, sweetness and aftertaste were the main differentiators. Among the tasters, most of the commentary revolved around the initial hit of sweetness and how long the bitterness of the caffeine or artificial flavours lingered. A sweeter drink with a short aftertaste ranked higher on the list. Thirdly, its apparent that consumers are probably more drawn to a brand than the actual taste. The fact that most testers couldnt directly identify arguably the most popular and known brand Red Bull from the competition shows that brand recognition goes a long way. PRIME may be the hottest topic right now, but when it comes to actual taste, it scores pretty low. Of course, all things considered, cost is also a major factor. Depending on where you buy these drinks, youll be hard-pressed to find anything that matches PRIMEs high price point. At R40, its clear its more about the brand than any particular quality of taste.