989 On Demand sounds like a sala­cious phone num­ber you call late at night, but it is actu­al­ly an inno­v­a­tive prod­uct from H2M Bev­er­ages. The lat­est in a mar­ket full of healthy drinks that promise to bal­ance your elec­trolytes and pro­vide ener­gy. H2M Bev­er­age is tot­ing 989 On Demand as a non­car­bon­at­ed drink with a twist. As it turns out, the twist is in the cap.

Health Waters

H2M Bev­er­age offers a small port­fo­lio of soda replace­ment drinks that includes 989 On Demand plus Liq­uid Light­ning and Herbal Mist. 989 comes under the cat­e­go­ry of cap-acti­vat­ed enhance­ment waters. The idea is the nutri­ents that boost per­for­mance and pro­vide ener­gy sit inside the cap until you are ready to drink. This keeps them from los­ing pow­er while the prod­uct sits on the shelf.

In an attempt to stay one step above the rest of the com­pa­nies who are turn­ing to cap-acti­va­tion to give their prod­ucts appeal, 989 On Demand sus­pends their enhance­ment ingre­di­ents in a liq­uid form. This gives them a pro­pri­etary edge over the rest who store only pow­der for­mu­las in the caps.

About That Name

The name is a clever mar­ket­ing gim­mick that reminds con­sumers what is healthy about the 989 for­mu­la. The drink con­tains nine essen­tial vit­a­mins, 84 ion­ic min­er­als and five elec­trolytes. If you lay all the num­bers out, you get 9 +8 +(4+5), or a neat play on words to cre­ate a mem­o­rable brand name. 989 brings no calo­ries to the table along with all-nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents. The fla­vor comes from ste­via, an herbal sweet­en­er. Cur­rent­ly 989 On Demand is avail­able in six varieties.

About H2M

H2M Bev­er­ages is a Pomp­ton, New Jer­sey based com­pa­ny that in 2008 took over and rehabbed a brand that had been on the mar­ket for a num­ber of years – Liq­uid Light­ning. H2M tends to think out of the box in all areas of busi­ness. For exam­ple, they turned to dairy hous­es to dis­trib­ute 989 in order to fall “under the radar,” accord­ing to vice pres­i­dent of dis­tri­b­u­tion Dar­ren Matik. They want­ed to stay away from cor­po­rate dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works uti­lized by Tar­get and Walmart.

The pro­pri­etary design of the cap-acti­va­tion sys­tem has not raised the price of the drink. It sells at just two dol­lars a bot­tle, mak­ing 989 com­pet­i­tive with oth­er prod­ucts of this genre.

The drink is too new to say whether the fan­cy twist cap will impress con­sumers, but H2M Bev­er­ages has proven they know how to sell a bev­er­age. Liq­uid Light­ning is one of most vis­i­ble ener­gy drinks out there and a pop­u­lar choice for a bar mix­er, as well. The acco­lades go to H2M founders who saw poten­tial and remade the for­mu­la into some­thing con­sumers would crave.

image: Ste­via — pri­ma­ry ingre­di­ent in drink Image cred­it Wiki­me­dia Commons