Should You Be Provocative? Best & Worst Rebrands, and What’s Next for Celsius

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Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G.

This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.

What's happening?

Today, we're finishing off our special series, Prop G on Marketing, where we answer your marketing questions.

And just a reminder: Office Hours Now drops every Monday and Friday.

That's twice a week, twice the Prof G.

If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehours at ProfGmedia.com.

Again, that's officehours at prof gmedia.com.

Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode.

First question.

Our first question comes from Sam on Reddit.

Jesus, that's the least original name I've heard on Reddit.

Sam works.

Scott, you have a strong personal brand.

How would you prioritize being provocative versus authentic when trying to break into your industry's discourse early on?

Thanks, Sam.

Okay.

I think it's a not an either or.

I think the more substance you have,

the easier it is to be provocative.

If you're just provocative without any substance or any logic or any fact-checking or any narrative arc or any entertainment value, then you're just fucking obnoxious.

I'm convinced that a decent amount of my success is a function of the credibility I get from being on the faculty NYU.

And I take that position seriously and try to be,

I don't know, more truthful.

I think about the data I put out there.

There is, it's drilled into you at a university that you are supposed to fact check your data and that is the most embarrassing thing that can happen is if you put out data that's incorrect.

So I take that seriously and I think it's made me better at being a media personality, if you will.

But I do like stating the obvious and way I'm provocative is I get angry, I curse, I use profane analogies, I call people out, I make personal attacks.

My rule on personal attacks is I only make them on people who are more powerful than me.

You know, if I were to say that this person is

a sociopath and is clearly broken and probably didn't get laid enough in college and is a total misogynist,

I don't know, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or is engaged in child abandonment issues or child or male abandonment, see above again, Elon Musk, those are fairly provocative things to say.

Those are personal attacks.

But one, I think they're true.

I have receipts, whether it's reporting from the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal that in fact says that Elon Musk is a rabid drug addict.

And also I have powers of observation where I can see him in the White House where he looks like he's out about too many hits of Molly at a Kaigo concert, which sounds like a good time to me.

I just would probably not do that before showing up to the White House with a black eye.

Jesus Christ.

Seriously, we treat the guy like he's a fucking runaway teen and in a year and a half he's going to start getting ARP mail.

Grow the fuck up, you weirdo.

Anyways, I think that essentially

the combination of the two.

So, all right.

Your larger question is, how do you build your personal brand?

You want to think about what your brand stands for.

And if it's, let's talk about it in the context of professional behavior.

Find a subject where you can go really deep and become a mild expert on.

Know more anything, know more than anyone about deep water economics or blue water economics or valuation of the biotech industry or how influencers

go up or down or how they leverage YouTube.

Find a very narrow piece of the world and try and own it and then start producing content on it.

And what is success?

Success is a series of small demonstrations of discipline every day.

If you work out 20 or 30 minutes every day within 12, 18 months, you're going to be a big fucking stack of awesome, right?

You're going to be fast, agile, and strong.

If you produce one piece of content every day, or maybe a really solid, well-produced piece of content once, twice, three times a week, before you know it, it aggregates and it builds up.

It's like investing, you know, 100 bucks a week.

If you're disciplined, by the time you're my age, you're kind of done financially.

That's what success looks looks like.

So we're going to find a narrow niche content area.

We're going to start producing content every day on it.

And then if you want to make a provocative statement, right, I think, I don't know, what have I said that's provocative recently?

I think America could end with a whimper.

I said at the opening of this show or the opening of my other Prof GPod that you could have Texas, California, the Midwest, and the East split into kind of four European Union-like countries focused on technology, oil and gas, manufacturing, and financial services, and

do trade with their own partners, have their own currency, their own militias, and essentially America breaks up with a whimper.

That's a fairly provocative thing to say, but I think it's interesting.

I think there's data there.

I think it makes sense when you hear it, or at least hear me kind of articulate it.

And I'd like to think that some of the substance I've put out and some of the effort I put around pulling together data makes a provocative statement a little bit more interesting.

So what are we going to do?

We're going to find a niche that we can sort of own.

We're going to start producing content on a regular basis and hold ourselves accountable.

Provocative is a loaded word.

I try not to say things that are just bullshit that I know are going to inflame people.

In sum, you want a peanut butter and chocolate of substance and rigorous analysis, and then be willing, if you believe something, to say something, even if it's not part of the narrative.

I think that's the real thing that's provocative or interesting is occasionally just going where the truth takes you, regardless of who it's going to offend, even if it offends your own tribe and the own orthodoxy that you've been taught to buy into if you're either blue, team blue, or team red.

If you're not pissing off people and saying shit that you don't get pushback on, it means you're probably not saying anything.

So, what are we going to do?

Again, identify the niche, weaponize social media, piece of content on a regular basis.

And

instead of pursuing the provocative, pursue the truth regardless of who it offends or whether it supports an orthodoxy that you've wanted to sign up to.

Appreciate the question.

Our second question comes from Natural Swimming247 on Reddit.

They ask,

what's the best rebrand of the past decade and the worst?

I have an easier time with the worst than the best.

For the best, I think the branding for the Premier League, the colors, the lion,

and they've done a great job of trying to build up their individual brands within the portfolio and then the parent brand.

I think it's just so well executed and so clean over the last decade.

You know, there's some other kind of stupid or simpler stuff.

Dunkin' Donuts going to Duncan was sort of a small piece of genius.

The The worst hands down is the brand destruction around Tesla, and that's just fucking stupid.

All right, who do EVs appeal to?

Democrats.

Who should I piss off?

Democrats.

That just made no sense.

I've never seen activity that's more contrarian to business interests.

His political actions, specifically swallowing a red pill the size of the

Lusitania.

75% of Republicans would never consider buying an EV.

So who's he trying to appeal to?

In Northern Europe, the sales are off 50%, 60%, and 70%.

The sales are down 11%.

In California, Tesla's brand or Tesla sales declined 20% year on year.

There's no automotive company in the world crashing faster in terms of revenue than Tesla right now.

Oh, wait, I thought of another one, probably the worst.

Going from HBO to HBO Go to HBO Now to HBO Joey Bag of Donuts to HBO Diet Coke to Max.

And then they finally got their head out of their ass and decided to reincorporate what is arguably one of the most artisanal strongest brands in the history of media and that is HBO which means better content you know if anyone's talking about a series around the water cooler chances are it appeared on HBO that culture their consistent sort of ability to punch about their white class and produce this sort of Ferrari Mercedes-like content versus Toyota just like this massive amount of data or content you find on other platforms it's an amazing brand and that was absolutely going to just max was the worst brand decision in media the last 10 years.

Now a step back from the wrong direction is a step in the right direction.

They brought back HBO but that it's amazing that they would be that stupid to ever even consider that.

We'll be right back after a quick break.

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Welcome back onto our final question from This Kills My GPA on Red.

These people are genius.

These people are genius.

By the way, I'm taking my son to take his ACT this Saturday.

And I have found, you know, initially they did away with testing because they thought they were culturally biased.

By the way, the reason they came up with the SAT was such that they could help kids in the inner city or low-income kids demonstrate excellence without a cultural bias.

And then we decided as we got so fucking woke that everything was culturally biased, so we didn't want, we removed the SAT and the ACT.

And what do you know, universities have decided it's a very strong indicator of your success in college and are reinstituting these tests.

Anyways, I'm taking my son to take the ACT this Saturday.

And what I have decided is that the ACT is really is actually very biased against young men who don't really give a shit.

I love that.

I love that.

Bias against people who don't really give a shit.

Anyways, we'll see how he does.

I don't know if he's going to Michigan or Michigan State or UVA or the University of Richmond.

Not that there's anything wrong with Michigan State or the University of Richmond, but you want to talk about manufactured stress that's unnecessary.

Just wait till your kid applies to college.

Anyway, not what you were asking.

Not what you were asking.

Celsius has built a formidable brand in energy drinks, viewed as a lighter, healthier product despite higher caffeine content, popular among women and those interested in fitness, and the opposite of the gamer bro.

of the other energy drinks.

They traded a lower price to sales in Monster despite plausibly having more growth ahead and room to expand internationally.

However, they don't have that one flavor like OG Red Bull.

And instead of getting acquired, they spent over a billion acquiring their closest competition.

Where is or should this brand be headed, John?

I don't know this market very well, John.

In 2022, PepsiCo invested 500 million, 550 million in Celsius.

Jesus.

In 2024, Celsius made up 9% of the U.S.

energy drink market by volume.

Monster led with 46.6%

of volume share, with Red Bull at 20%.

Celsius ad spend is rapidly growing: $85 million in 2022, $160 in 2023, $220 million in 2024.

I don't know the space.

I think I would probably stay away from this.

Let me just look at this stock really quickly.

Okay, so what is it?

It's got a market cap of $11 billion.

Its P is $127.

Yeah, I just don't know enough about this company.

The reason I'm sort of initially a bit anemic here is that I just came from Summit in Detroit, and it just seems like

anyone and everyone is starting energy drinks or different CBD infused sodas.

It strikes me that the whole space is just so incredibly crowded.

They kind of a mixed financial picture.

In the first quarter of 2025, revenue of $320 million dropped by 7% yearly.

Well, that's enough for me.

If it's trading at a P of $120 and it's not growing.

Revenue growth should improve in the near term due in part to the Alani New takeover.

Alani New.

I think that's a hotel I want to go to after my fifth divorce in Hawaii.

In 2025, analysts forecast 60% revenue growth.

But once Celsius benefits from that one-time bump, they expect revenue

increase.

I'm sure that revenue bump is from the acquisition, expect it to slow to 21%.

Even though international sales made up 7% of revenue in Q in 2025, that part of the market grew by 41%.

And

I don't know.

I just don't know the space space well enough right now to go into this thing.

And it looks expensive to me.

But, you know, what I would suggest is if you like the space, go into

an ETF focused on the energy drink space and get a little bit of all of it.

Because what you're trying to do is stock pick relative to the rest of them.

And I don't know if that's a good idea.

Long-winded way of saying I don't know, but thanks for the question.

That's all for this episode.

If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at profgumedia.com.

Again, that's officehours at profitmedia.com.

Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.

This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.

Drew Burroughs is our technical director.

Thank you for listening to the Profit GPod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.