It’s interesting to note that when MonaVie eMV (the regular version) became available, many MonaVie distributors said this exact statement:

A significant number of energy drinks are also available in sugar free or low carbohydrate versions. These products provide very little if any “real energy,” since energy comes from calories.

Click the link and you can find hundreds of articles with the same exact words on Google, so this had to be passed on from MonaVie in some form (hundreds of distributors wouldn’t make up the exact same page of marketing material).

I knew at the time MonaVie was going to regret using that statement. At the time it proved that MonaVie doesn’t provide energy (I’m referring to Active, Original, etc… that have few calories.)

Now it looks like the statement might come back to haunt MonaVie again. What is eMV Lite going to be? I haven’t been able to track down any information on the product itself yet. It surely can’t be low calorie version since the marketing for eMV was pretty clear in that there is “very little energy” in those drinks. MonaVie finds itself once again trapped in their own marketing web. Either they admit that they were wrong about their marketing of MonaVie eMV or they have to come out with a MonaVie eMV Lite that bends the definition of “Lite” in such a way as containing full calories. It will be interesting to see how they handle that.

I should also point out that Amthrax poses the interesting eMV Lite question of how MonaVie is going to push the no “artificial flavors or sweeteners” angle if they end up using a sugar substitute. My only guess here is that it uses Stevia or some deriviative (rebaudioside-A) that I see was approved as a food additive. That would be the smart way for MonaVie to go.

[Edit: I'm seeing another MLM energy drink, XOWii, has stevia in it. It would be very surprised if MonaVie used anything other than stevia, as stevia is the most marketable of the sweetners - since it's natural.]