MonaVie says that it can’t disclose the amount of acai in it’s blend because it would be giving up a trade secret. In theory, someone else could use the information to help decode part of the MonaVie’s secret recipe.

One thing we do know, açai is the first ingredient on the MonaVie label. With 18 other fruits in the juice, there’s likely at least 5.3% açai. As a consumer, one should take a skeptical look with their money and not assume there’s any more than that. I don’t know anyone who drinks Coca-cola for health. They pay a small amount of money for the taste. The ingredients or secret recipe is not important to the value that one receives in buying Coke if they just want good taste. If MonaVie wants to bill itself as something that tastes great and price itself similar to Coke, I’m fine with that. If it wants to bill itself as a healthy beverage, it should have to show why it’s healthier than other competing beverages at less than 1/10th the cost (like V8 Fusion Açai Berry).

It is my belief that a premium price requires proof of a lot of premium ingredients. Is that what’s in MonaVie? Only MonaVie knows, and they aren’t saying.

Originally posted 2009-03-07 10:32:23.

One thing that I found interesting is that you don’t even get the trunk that’s in the picture. Why call it a trunk of tools and put a picture of a trunk, if there’s no trunk? It’s marketing designed to confuse the buyer. It would have been a lot more accurate to just take a picture of the tools themselves.

If TEAM wasn’t trying to steal your money with it’s trunk trick, Amthrax has shown that the trunks are a waste of money. Many would agree that the sales tools are a waste of money, but he points out that you can buy all the items in the trunks for less than the bundled package. Who has heard of paying more for buying a bulk package? If I buy in bulk, I expect to get a discount, not a surcharge.

Clearly anyone who is buying these trunks are not making a wise purchasing decision… and the seller looks bad by trying to pull a fast one on his customers.

Originally posted 2009-05-25 06:04:52.

I just finished reading this “side by side” comparison of MonaVie and Sambazon. After comparing the process behind the products, he concludes they are similar. He then states that a bottle of Sambazon is $2.99 while a bottle of MonaVie is $39.99 or more. Sounds like the MonaVie distributor is going to go with the sane choice and say that MonaVie is out-matched.

Of course the author doesn’t do this. He compares the cost per serving. There is where the logic falls apart. A true side by side comparison would be to compare the cost of MonaVie per ounce vs. the cost of Sambazon per ounce. You end up getting just an ounce of MonaVie for the $1.80/serving… but you get nearly the whole bottle in Sambazon’s $2.30/serving. So rather than congratulate Sambazon for using serving sizes that people actually drink, he twists it into some kind of negative. When you break it down ounce for ounce, the Sambazon becomes $0.29/ounce vs. MonaVie’s $1.80/ounce (plus shipping). It’s not close is it?

He then goes on to say:

No matter how much Sambazon I drink and no matter how many people I tell about Sambazon, I will never get paid to drink it.

That’s one of the very odd statements you’ll hear MonaVie distributors say. When you look at the MonaVie Income Disclosure Statement, you’ll note that 82% of the people (Distributor and Star level) who are actively trying to sell the juice, end up having to work 500 hours a year to break even on the $1500 of juice they drink. Do if you actively working the business, and you better than 82% of the people also working the business, you may get free juice for a year by donating 500 hours of your time. By the way, 500 hours is 31 days at 16 hours each. Yes, it’s a month of your life working 16 hour days for “free” juice. Another way to look at it is two months of your life working standard 8 hours of your life for “free” juice. That’s spending 1/6th of your yearly work life for “free” juice.

The other factor that I liked about MonaVie is the fact that you can have it automatically delivered to your doorstep every month.

MonaVie offers free shipping? Of course not. You have to pay for that, but with Sambazon, I just put it in my cart as I’m already at the store buying milk and other staples. The shipping cost of MonaVie is another negative.

MonaVie is 100% juice, there is no water and the juice in MonaVie Active and Pulse is not from concentrate. Only 1 of Sambazon’s drinks is 100% juice and they all contain water and juice from concentrate.

It’s completely unclear how MonaVie can add something freeze-dried without reconstituting it with water. It simply doesn’t make sense. Also since Sambazon is 1/6th the price of MonaVie, as long as it has more than 16.6% juice, you are getting more juice for your money. It’s simple math… You can get one ounce of 100% juice at $1.80 with MonaVie – or 6 ounces of Sambazon’s 80% juice (equal to 4.8 ounces of MonaVie’s 100%) for the same price. You still get nearly 5 times more for your dollar. That was the lowest amount of juice as Sambazon also had a 95% juice and a 100% juice option.

The sugar per serving for Sambazon is: 20g for Supergreens Revolution, 21g for Antioxidant Trinity and 30g for Strawberry Samba. The sugar per serving for MonaVie is: 3g for MonaVie Original, 3g for MonaVie Active and 7g for MonaVie Pulse.

More “serving size” trickery. Sambazon’s serving size is 8 ounces, so it’s sugar is actually less than MonaVie’s. It’s another example of false – “side by side” comparison. There’s more to it though as he goes into calories a serving and fat a serving. Again, you are getting 1/8th the amount of juice with MonaVie, so you should expect 1/8th the calories and 1/8 the fat.

My favorite source of lies was this one though…

Q: What is the ORAC score for your product?

A: Sambazon.com: One of our Acai smoothies or juices (10.4 fl oz.) have anywhere from 5,000- 15,000 ORAC units.
Monavie.com: Four ounces of MonaVie has an approximate ORAC value of 4,000 to 5,000 units. This is the approximate ORAC value of 5 to 13 commonly eaten fruits and vegetables. Health experts currently recommend consuming 5,000 ORAC units per day for optimal antioxidant protection.
***SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON*** If you break down the ORAC unit scores per oz. Sambazon smoothies or juices have between 481 to 1442 units per ounce and MonaVie has between 1000 to 1250 units per ounce.

We already determined that MonaVie is clearly lying when it says it’s approximately 4000-5000 ORAC units. This is a big advantage for Sambazon.

So the real side-by-side comparison:
Sambazon: 481 to 1442 ORAC units/ounce (average is 961.5 ORAC)
MonaVie: 672.6 ORAC units/ounce

Sambazon Cost/ounce: $0.29
MonaVie Cost/ounce: $1.80

So for 1/6th the price, you can get what is likely to be 30% more ORAC.

Originally posted 2009-09-23 16:47:10.

Let’s imagine we are talking about cars instead of MonaVie juice. If a new car sells for $20,000, you wouldn’t expect to get much than, well – a car. I actually heard a commercial for a cheap car recently where one of the sound bites was “you just put the key in the ignition, and it goes!” That’s about all I’d expect for $20,000. But if the new car is selling for $200,000, I’d expect that any claims the dealer makes about it can be backed up – and it better be one hell of a car! Does it really do 0 to 60 in under 5 seconds? Does it have a V-12? Do the seats have the fancy butt-warmer option? I’d also want to see reviews from sources like Car and Driver, and I certainly wouldn’t buy it on the basis of far-fetched claims on the company’s brochure or from some smooth-talking hustler of a salesman. If a dealer tries to tell me a car on the lot is a Ferrari, it should look like a Ferrari, not a Ford Focus… which brings us back to the subject of Monavie…

At $45, MonaVie prices itself at about 10 times more than the average 100% pure juice in my supermarket. I think it’s safe to say that it’s priced like a Ferrari. The Ferrari tells us what kind of engine and how fast it can go – I would expect MonaVie to say how much acai and other juice types it contains. Yet it does not. I would also like to see things on the label like that it has no preservatives and is made organically, and that it provides a significant amount of the recommended daily allowance for many vitamins. Monavie provides no such assurances on the label. Instead of a good review from sources like Car and Driver, we have poor reviews from sources like Men’s Journal.

In other words, if MonaVie costs some $45 but serves the same function as juice (tasting good and being good for you), it had better have some spectacular benefits. Alas, there’s no evidence of such benefits. Any testimonials can be explained by the placebo effect.

Originally posted 2009-09-16 10:46:39.

Men’s Journal commissioned independent (i.e. non-biased) lab ChromaDex to test various fruit juices. Miriam Pappo, director of clinical nutrition at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, says that there are four things to look for in a juice:

• Phenolic Acids – To help prevent cancer
• Anthocyanins – To prevent aging
• Vitamin C – To aid in healing wounds
• Beta-carotene – To boost the immune system

Given that, Men’s Journal had 8 juices tested:

Conclusion: Looking at this table, it seems pretty clear to me that Welch’s Grape juice is the only juice with 3 good levels or better. At 75 cents a serving it is also the cheapest. MonaVie on the other hand scored poorly in all four criteria. It’s another example of how you can get more for your money by skipping MonaVie and going with a traditional juice.

Originally posted 2009-09-16 21:16:49.

• It’s a list of privately held companies – You won’t see Coca-Cola, Pepsi, ConAgra foods or other giants on the list. What are the other nine companies in the top 10? I’m glad you asked: GourmetGiftBaskets.com, SmartPrice Sales & Marketing, Innovative Foods, The Snack Factory, SoDel Concepts, LesserEvil Brand Snack, Mary’s Gone Crackers, Plenus Group, Oskar Blues Brewery. Congrats if you’ve heard of any of those. It’s not exactly an All-Star line-up of the top food companies in America.
• It’s a “Fastest Growing” list – From the You can read more on that in the methodology, it’s clear that they are measuring growth. It’s easy to start out small and grow. It’s hard to sustain that growth over the long term.
• It ranks revenue – Want to make this list? Simply give away $5 bills for 1 dollar. You can easily book $1 billion in revenue, but you’ll lose $4 billion dollars. Is that a top business? I don’t think so.
• It doesn’t verify the numbers that a company reports – There’s no independent accounting firm verifying the revenue numbers are actually correct. It’s all self-reported. A company could easily give different numbers than the actual truth.
• Perfect timing for MonaVie – The methodology says it’s a measure of revenue growth from 2005 to 2008 – which just happens to be a convenient time range for MonaVie. If the company picked 2003 or just took the last year into effect, you’d see MonaVie drop quite a bit from the list.
• It’s not important to most companies – From the methodology link above, “A number of companies had growth high enough to make the Inc. 500, the top 500 of the Inc. 5000, but did not complete the revenue verification portion of the application process in time for Inc. magazine’s deadline.” If it was important to companies, you’d think they’d complete the paperwork right? And if they did, it’s possible that MonaVie could have dropped.
• It’s something the company has to apply to Inc. for – There could have been numerous other companies that are… well perhaps too busy running their company to care about applying to Inc. Magazine for this.

And the most important reason why this award means nothing? Call it the LHR effect. Who is LHR? Read the NBC Dateline story here. Specifically you want to focus on page 4 of the article. A company called LHR, also named to Inc. 500 list, is a debt collection company. Representatives of the company were told to lie by the company if necessary to make the sale. One representative claimed to be a military liaison and that the person was going to kicked out of the military if they didn’t pay.

Here is a direct quote from that story:

Tina Erdley: The FDCPA regulates what we say on the phone.
Dateline: But she says following the law is optional.
Tina Erdley: But once you get on the phone and are actually talking to somebody, you kinda say what you need to say.

Hmm, one can’t imagine that a MonaVie distributor would ever “say what you need to say” to make a sale once they are in a meeting. Perhaps this is why so many distributors say that drinking MonaVie is equal to eating 13 fruits, has the protein of an egg, helped their cancer or autism.

Originally posted 2010-01-09 18:45:10.

Oprah clearly lists on her site:

Consumers should be aware that neither Oprah Winfrey nor Dr. Oz are associated with nor do they endorse any açaí berry product, company or online solicitation of such products, including MonaVie juice products. Attorneys for Harpo are pursuing companies that claim such an affiliation.

This is a comment that specifically calls out MonaVie and MonaVie distributors. From the date you can see it goes back to January and there are 750 comments (as of 8/22/09), most about how people got scammed by acai products.

It can’t get any more straight-forward than that… or can it?

Oprah announced yesterday that she is suing three Utah companies one of which is MonaVie.

“We know that thousands of people have been misled by these marketing practices,” said Marc Rachman, the attorney for Oz and Winfrey and companies that manage their images and trademarks, on Friday. “Oprah.com has received e-mail in the thousands from people who believe Oprah and Dr. Oz are affiliated with these products and have endorsed them when they haven’t.”

What is MonaVie’s defense?

A top official at Monavie said Friday it was mistakenly put on the list of “Internet scammers” who trade on the reputation of the açai as a health-promoting berry the company makes into a drink product. CFO Devin Thorpe said the company did not promote free trials of products, had a liberal money-back policy and did not say or imply that Winfrey or Oz had endorsed the Monavie açai-based juice.

“We really feel like we’re the victims of these Internet scammers every bit as much as Oprah is a victim of them,” said Thorpe. “Monavie really created the açai business in the United States … And it’s really [Internet scammers] trading on our good name.”

If that’s the case why are there so many comments in the Lazy Man MonaVie Scam comment archives about Oprah endorsing MonaVie? It sounds like MonaVie is profiting from the “Internet scammers.”

Originally posted 2009-08-22 06:14:18.

As we know one day’s worth (4oz.) of MonaVie costs between $3.20 (distributor price of $20/25oz. bottle) and $7.20 (retail price of $45/25oz. bottle). A single Red Delicious apple costs about $0.75.

The 4oz. of MonaVie has a ORAC of 2,698 umoles (29.57 ml per oz multiplied by 4 oz. multiplied by an ORAC score of 22.81 – according to AIBMR’s study by MonaVie board member Alex Schauss (see page 8329 of the journal, first paragraph in the “Results” heading)). It also gives you a total phenolics (all antioxidants) of 175 mg. The 22.81 ORAC and 1.48 mg phenolics are from the MonaVie-sponsored study by AIBMR Life Sciences.

A single Red Delicious apple has an average weight 150 gms. Total ORAC per apple: 6,413 umoles. (42.75 umoles times 150 gms). Total phenolics (total antioxidants): 520 mg per apple. Apple data from USDA ORAC Table of Selected Foods – 2007

SUMMARY:
ORAC: MonaVie 2,698, Apple 6,413 (Apple is more than 2 as much)
PHENOLICS: MonaVie 175 mg Apple 520 mg (Apple is more than twice as much)
COST: MonaVie $3.20 to $7.20 per day Apple $0.75/day (apple is 5 or 10 times cheaper)

Originally posted 2009-09-14 14:05:59.

Scott – Aspirin is used to treat pains and for head aches some people swear buy it, it doesn’t do a thing for me, I guess I should call everyone who says it works for them a liar making false claims. (source)

#91 – Damian – “There are people who take Tylenol…and it does nothing for them. Then they take Advil and it does wonders…does that make Tylenol a scam?” (source)

#259 – Damian – “…Tylenol doesn’t work for me… Advil does.” (source)

#1237 – MonaVieUser – “If I get a headache with is very rare, Tylenol doesn’t work for me, but I guess it works for some people…” (source)

(Spelling corrected in the above quotes for readability.)

Notice how similar these all sound. It’s almost like a script. In fact, we even have Damian projecting the Tylenol/Advil argument as something that others experience… and then he turns around and says that it doesn’t do anything for him personally. It does sound like someone who confused a script.

Here’s the problem with the argument… Aspirin has been clinically proven. It has treat pains and headaches in billions of cases over dozens of years. I have never met a person who it didn’t help – nor heard of someone it didn’t help (except for MonaVie distributors). I’m sure there might be some out there and these people might be in the 0.001% who are like that. In my opinion, it’s extremely unlikely that they’d all wind up selling MonaVie.

MonaVie has not been clinically proven to even help treat pains or headaches of one person more than a placebo would. Since people spend billions more aspirin than on MonaVie a year, one would think that MonaVie could prove that it helps people with pains and headaches, they would. Then they could put an all-powerful thing on the label saying that it’s been shown to help that medical condition. It would mean 10x more money for MonaVie and their distributors almost overnight. Yet MonaVie can’t put their money into running those tests?

It’s another case where MonaVie distributors are trying to get people to think of MonaVie in a medicine light. In fact, the name MonaVieUser, is another attempt at that. People don’t talk about food and drink as “using it.” One would expect him call himself MonaVieDrinker. It’s a good use of Doublespeak to try to subtly confuse people.

Originally posted 2009-09-17 05:45:50.

Truthful and Typical
MonaVie says:

“MonaVie distributors who provide testimonials online AND offline must be truthful AND be subject to typical results… testimonials about MonaVie products or money making opportunities must conform to MonaVie approved statements… While distributors may not think of themselves as ‘advertisers’ nor their individual stories as ‘endorsements’ the new guidelines seem to explain otherwise. An endorsement is any advertising message… that would imply is the opinion, experience, belief or finding of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser.”

Analysis: It would now seem to violate FTC guidelines to say that you even believe or your experience with MonaVie was related to anything medical-related. That can not be considered “typical results” with the exception of mentioning plant sterols in MonaVie Pulse. One way a distributor could get around this is the “I am not a MonaVie distributor, but…” line that many have seen before. Of course such claims should have zero weight in your decision of whether to buy MonaVie because of the high likelihood that it really is a distributor just trying to sneak around the FTC’s guidelines. This is another why MonaVie medical testimonies are pointless

MonaVie gives two examples of poor claims:

• MonaVie says:
  

  “MonaVie Pulse restored my eyesight.” – While that maybe an honest opinion, it is not a typical result, and therefore, any such opinion posted online or said offline would be in violation of the current guidelines, unless there is valid research to support the claim.

  Analysis: Kudos to MonaVie for giving a clear example. It is, however, quite sad that they think “MonaVie Pulse restored my eyesight” is a statement of “an honest opinion” and not one of scientific fact (it either did or did not restore your eyesight). They would have been wise to make it more clear by saying, “I believe MonaVie Pulse restored my eyesight”, which is an honest opinion that is not typical.

• MonaVie says:
  

  “I made $25,000, in one month with MonaVie, and you can too.” While this statement may be true…the result is not “typical”. Such statements would be in violation of the current guidelines. Whenever discussing earnings, you should refer to the Income Disclosure Statement and provide the link or the actual document.

  Analysis: Nicely done by MonaVie to give a money example. It would seem that distributors can’t talk dreams of becoming Black Diamonds either without referencing the Income Disclosure Statement and showing people that the odds are up there with some lotteries.

Distributor Disclosure Mandatory
MonaVie says:

“Distributors must disclose their relationship or identify themselves as a MonaVie independent distributor when making comments in regards to MonaVie or MonaVie products on blogs, websites, message boards, social networking sites (ex. Facebook, Twitter, etc.), etc… Posting the disclosure simply on your blog or social networking page is not enough; you must also do so when posting comments.”

Specifically MonaVie points out this FTC guideline:

“Example 8: An online message board designated for discussions of new music download technology is frequented by MP3 player enthusiasts. They exchange information about new products, utilities, and the functionality of numerous playback devices. Unbeknownst to the message board community, an employee of a leading playback device manufacturer has been posting messages on the discussion board promoting the manufacturer’s product.

Knowledge of this poster’s employment likely would affect the weight or credibility of her endorsement. Therefore, the poster should clearly and conspicuously disclose her relationship to the manufacturer to members and readers of the message board.”

Analysis: As mentioned above MonaVie distributors must disclose their relationship and identify themselves. Whether they heed this guideline or choose to thumb their nose at the law seems to be one of his/her own person honor code. There doesn’t seem to be anything that would stop a distributor from using the “I am not a MonaVie distributor, but…” defense.

It should be noted that MonaVie headquarters is guilty of violating example 8 themselves so they should already be in trouble with the FTC if these guidelines apply retroactively. If not, at least they should now issue a statement that what they did was wrong.

MonaVie and the Distributor is Liable
The FTC guidelines say:

“Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser. Endorsements may not imply, suggest, or express any representation that may be deceptive. Endorsers and Advertisers are liable for any false or deceptive statements or for failing to conspicuously disclose required information.”

MonaVie reminds its distributors:

“When one becomes a distributor for MonaVie, you are not just representing yourself, but also MonaVie. As such, under the new guidelines both can be held liable for possible violations. While many of our distributors have compelling stories or testimonials of benefits MonaVie products may have provided for them, as a distributor, these testimonials can be regarded as endorsements and are thus subject to the new guidelines.”

Analysis: A long time ago, I compared MonaVie to Napster. Both Distributors and MonaVie themselves claimed that they can’t be held accountable for the bad apples. Napster tried this defense when its users were stealing music. It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now. MonaVie now seems to acknowledge this in light of the FTC guidelines. No longer can Larsen say “It’s next to impossible like herding cats.” The FTC can simply respond with, “find a new way of distributing your juice or don’t distribute it.”

FTC is going after “Health” Companies
MonaVie quotes Richard Cleland, FTC assistant director, division of advertising practices, from the Fast Company:

“‘I realize there are hundreds of thousands of bloggers out there. Enforcement on a case-by-case basis–that’s not even a realistic approach. There are other types of enforcement, surfing the Internet, finding companies that are making significant health claims about products, identifying where problems exist. We’d alert Web sites to potential problems and then invite them to contact us about questions of compliance. I don’t think it’s a matter of the enforcement side being weak but the most cost-effective tool in our arsenal. In this case, we’re going to rely more on voluntary compliance than prosecution. That’s the most likely source that we’ll be able to use to identify a problem, and if we do see a problem at a ground level and then ask the right questions, we’ll figure out why there’s a problem pretty quickly and go from there.’ Also, Cleland adds, ‘Competitors are very quick to turn people in. I’ve never suffered from a shortage of competitive complaints.‘”

(The bolding is emphasis from MonaVie.)

MonaVie follows with their own quote:

“In researching to obtain clarity on this subject, Cleland repeatedly cited ‘acai berry’ sites as making outrageous claims, and even hinted such sites might not receive a warning.”

Analysis: MonaVie bills themselves as one of the leaders in the acai berry business. It would be logical that if Cleland is citing the “acai berry” repeatedly, MonaVie would be one of the first companies in the FTC’s aim of fire. One has to question how long MonaVie has before the FTC takes action. It can’t be wise building a business on something so shaky.

Originally posted 2009-12-02 16:04:45.