Features-Website Redesign for Websites
Overview
To win a place on the shelf, a brand first must earn a place in the room.
LICK Energy came to FifthColor for a website redesign as part of a larger push to get in front of major retail buyers . What started as a site refresh grew into a broader brand evolution, with FifthColor ultimately bringing the strategy to life across both the website and video.
The result was a more defined brand platform that paired LICK’s authentic personality with a polished digital presence. The work showed how standing out in a crowded category can start with understanding what already makes a brand distinct.
THE ENERGY TO GO FULL YOU
THE ENERGY TO GO FULL YOU
THE ENERGY TO GO FULL YOU
The Challenge
As LICK Energy laid the groundwork to expand into the U.S retail market, buyer feedback highlighted an opportunity to better connect with female purchasers, one of the category’s fastest-growing segments. LICK’s existing site skewed more masculine, creating an opportunity to evolve the digital experience to better resonate with this audience,. align with retailer expectations, and strengthen its position in conversations with major U.S. buyers. The energy drink category was already crowded, with established brands competing across performance, gaming and culture, wellness, and social occasions. LICK needed more than a new look. It needed a distinct position it could credibly own and a clear reason for customers to choose it.
The Solution
FifthColor started with business intelligence rather than design. The team researched energy drink audiences and mapped LICK Energy against major category players to identify defensible whitespace rather than simply finding ways to ‘look different.’ That research revealed whitespace across social energy and nightlife, bold and culture forward energy with balance, and creative community and scene-driven occasions.
LICK Energy already had the personality to fill that gap. Their existing “Misbehave Responsibly” attitude and “Think fun, not felony” spirit aligned with the whitespace the research uncovered. The opportunity centered on an audience defined more by mindset than demographics: people aging out of reckless chaos, but not into boring. FifthColor’s job was to take that existing brand personality and give it a full, cohesive story. That evolved into No Apologies, a brand platform built around a simple idea: the best moments happen when you stop holding back.
As website concepting progressed and conversations turned to how competitors were showing up digitally, LICK Energy saw an opportunity to bring the new brand platform to life through video. FifthColor ultimately took on both the website and hero video, allowing the two to develop as one connected brand experience.
Studied audience data, consumption occasions, and major category players to identify defensible whitespace for LICK.
Expanded LICK's existing "Misbehave Responsibly" attitude into a full brand story centered on authenticity and living without holding back.
Shot in Miami, the video was built specifically to serve as the site's hero video, designed to work without audio since hero videos autoplay muted on load, with an eye toward future cutdowns for social and paid media.
Created a custom digital experience using new typography, gradients, hand-drawn illustration, animation, and a mix of original video stills and existing product photography to give the site a cohesive, ownable visual style.
Moved the hero video from approval to delivery in eight weeks, with the full project, business intelligence, concepting, video execution, and website development completed in about eighteen weeks.
The Results? Clients said it best:
Why It Worked
Grounding the creative in real business intelligence, rather than assumption, let FifthColor find whitespace in an oversaturated category instead of just making LICK Energy look different for its own sake. LICK Energy didn’t need an identity built from scratch. It needed its existing personality translated into a brand platform that aligned with real, researched whitespace and was executed with enough craft to stand apart.
Letting the video need emerge naturally out of the website process, rather than treating the two as separate asks, kept the result feeling like one unified brand statement.
Key Takeaways
A website redesign became a full brand evolution once the research pointed the way. LICK Energy's new digital presence was built to open doors with retailers and finally say, clearly and confidently, who the brand already was.
- Real audience and category research turns "look different" into "own something specific."
- The strongest brand platforms are often already inside the client. The work is translation, not invention.
- Letting creative needs emerge organically from a single engagement can produce a more unified outcome than treating each asset as a separate project.
