How do you build a brand in a highly competitive market with a limited budget or even no budget? Tenzing and its founder Huib Van Bockel are a brilliant example of how to do just this. I first posted on Tenzing back in 2018 here, based on some inspiring meetings with Huib, who was a client on my very first brandgym project in his Unilever days. He subsequently worked for MTV and Red Bull, before launching Tenzing in 2016.
I reported in the original post that “It’s early days for Tenzing, but turnover is growing fast, on track to more then double to £2m in turnover this year”. Since then Tenzing has grown to be the nº 3 energy drink in Tesco after Red Bull and Monster, selling more than 40 million cans/year.
Below, I share a refreshed and updated version of my original post. These insights apply to start-up brands but bigger brands too.
1. Tap into a human truth
Tenzing tapped into the demand for drinks that deliver taste and functional benefits, in this case energy, but without artificial additives or added sugar. Huib spotted this need during his time at Red Bull that these needs were growing.
Huib’s timing was top-notch, as he was also able to meet an important customer need for healthier drinks. Critcially, Tenzing has less than 5g of sugar per 100ml: drinks over this threshold had to pay a ‘sugar tax’, which most retailers have passed on to consumers in higher prices. Tenzing had a positive reaction from many major retailers (Holland & Barrett, Tesco, Boots) but also the National Health Service, who stocked the brand in hundreds of hospitals up and down the country.
2. Bake the brand into the product
The best bands have some product “sausage” not just emotional “sizzle”. And Tenzing is a great example of how to do this. Huib ‘baked the brand’ and its story into the product itself. The recipe is based on an energising drink that Himalayan Sherpas drink to fuel them on their expeditions. The six ingredients (green tea, green coffee, guarana, beet sugar, Himalayan rock salt and lemon juice) provide a ‘triple-hit’ of caffeine, electrolytes and antioxidants, with only 55 calories.
This product story is a ‘reason to believe’ for the functional benefit of natural energy. It also makes the brand more distinctive and ‘talkable’: key for start-ups, but also for big brand companies looking to boost social media presence. Nine years after launch, the Times article reporting on the Heineken deal used this product story in their article: “During a trek through Nepal, he tried natural teas drunk by Sherpas in the Himalayas. He subsequently made contact with the family of Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa mountaineer who climbed Everest with Sir Edmund Hilary in 1953, and over a cup of Sherpa tea the family gave their blessing to van Bockel using the Tenzing name.” Brilliant.
3. Develop a distinctive visual identity
Huib created an impactful visual identity for Teniz before most people had heard of “distinctive brand assets”. And this has been one of the brand’s key success factors. The design cleverly cues both energy and the brand’s origins, via the upward pointing arrow in the shape of a mountain peak. Genius.
The brand name itself pays homage to Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who accompanied Sir Edmund Hillary on his pioneering climb to the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. Importantly for brand authenticity, this is not just a case of slapping Tenzing’s name on the can. Huib works closely with Norgay’s sons, who are business partners and 5% profits go to funding environmental projects in Nepal.
4. Drive fresh consistency
It is impressive to see what a great job Huib and the team have done at driving fresh consistency. They avoided the temptation to mess around with the design and change it fundamentally. Instead, they have carefully updated the packaging to simplify it and improve impact, whilst also allowing variant differentiation as the range extended.
You can see this below in the visual showing the pack design at the time of my original 2018 post and updates that followed. I love the way how Huib has continued to blend the mountain on the pack into the visual behind it, best seen in the 2025 execution.
5. Real-life research
In common with other owners of small, ‘insurgent’ brands, Huib made great use of ‘real-life research’. This meant getting out of the office and away from the data, to connect with human beings. “I found places for every category that we wanted to go into – offices, universities and quick-service restaurants – and tested our prototypes on people there,” explained Huib.
This approach has several benefits:
- fast, honest and real feedback
- a good start point to sell-in the brand (Huib got listings in Google and King’s College this way)
- free!
Huib and the Tenzing team also used a test & learn approach adopted by tech start-ups, first launching a minimum viable product (MVP) and adjusting the marketing mix as he went. Early feedback suggested improvements to the can design to better emphasise the brand’s natural ingredients, for example.”Get to market as quickly as possible and listen to what people say,” says Huib. “Every new product run, we tweaked the look.”
6. Extend strategically
Huib has extended the brand beyond the original core drink. But he has done this strategically and with an eye on creating “talkable” products that further drive profile. Back in 2023 we posted on how Tenzing took advantage of lower media costs during the Covid crisis. The brand forged ahead as big brands cut back, boosted share of voice to launch a new Blackberry & Açaí version. This responded to needs for functionally active drinks as more people took up home fitness during lockdown. More recently, the Times reported (1) on Tenzing creating “what it claims to be the world’s strongest natural energy drink, Fiery Mango. It contains 160mg of caffeine from green coffee and green tea, as well as 500mg of lion’s mane mushrooms”.
7. Be a ‘brand CEO’
Huib is a great example of what I call a “brand CEO”: the living, breathing manifestation of the brand and its values. Our research shows that people are c. 10x more likely to follow the leader of a brand on social media than the brand itself. So, leaders have a key role to play in promoting their brand and business, whether start-up founders, or big brand directors.
To build the brand on a shoestring budget, Huib wrote a book on social branding to get speaking gigs, which helped pay the bills but also promote Tenzing. He has maintained a hands-on role in building the all-important physical distribution for the brand. And he raised the profile of the brand through articles on the Tenzing story.
In conclusion, the Tenzing brand is an inspiring example of how to build a highly distinctive brand that can grow with a limited budget. Bravo to Huib and all the team, for whom I am delighted. My only regret? Not investing in the business back in 2018!
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