The title basically says it all, Cellucor comes in at number 2 on our list of Top 5 Brands in 2013. This marks the third time the company have featured in our Brand Awards, giving them 100% attendance in our annual celebration, a record shared by only one other brand, Muscle Pharm. Throughout the year Cellucor proved time and time again that quality, innovation, and presentation can win out. The brand launched more than their fair share of products, improved on some of their current ones, and basically did everything a supplement company should do.
For Cellucor 2013 sort of started off with their announcement of M5 Reloaded. The product was teased and previewed over the Arnold Classic period and confirmed as the stimulant free sequel to M5 Extreme. Around that time the brand were already carrying a lot of momentum with their Cor-Performance Whey protein powder, which was slowly taking over the market. The team had put a lot of effort into maintaining their signature quality, and actually making the protein formula extremely competitive. Despite early assumptions about Cellucor’s Cor-Whey to turn out to be too expensive, after it’s release everyone started to learn that the supplement was in fact no joke. It’s contents were clean, it’s flavoring was beyond delicious, and to top it off, it’s price was up there with the best. It’s competitiveness was furthered when Bodybuilding.com teamed up with the brand to put together a 12lb stack that made Cor-Whey next to unbeatable in value.
While Cellucor’s protein powder basically took off from there, the brand had a lot more up their sleeve. After the confirmation of M5 Reloaded, there was quite the silence on the topic of the product, right up until it was announced that the M5 sequel would be coming with another reformulated supplement. A lot of names were being thrown around, however it was the hints and tips from Cellucor that eventually gave it all away. Even though we were 100% certain that it was P6 Black set to make the return, when it was eventually made official, like most we were still blown away. The legendary muscle builder along with M5 Reloaded were launched late March, early April, and for a lot of Cellucor fans did what they were hoping to do.
From there the brand continued to push promotions primarily for P6 Black Extreme, which were later taken over by the arrival of a new spin off line. The brightly colored name of the series was Neon Sport, a collection claiming to be quite a bit different from anything Cellucor had produced before. When the series was finally released, it became pretty clear that they were not lying, proving that innovation was in fact a talent of theirs. Putting together our #7 pre-workout Volt, the BCAA and SAA Kinetic, the testosterone booster Surge, and the AI-cortisol formula Intercept.
At this point Cellucor had more than enough going for them, with the success of Neon spreading, Cor-Performance Whey becoming more competitive with buy 1 get 1 deals, and then the talk of Royal Sport Ltd. Initially the Royal line was kept quite quiet for about two months, or at least from our perspective. It then hit it’s exclusive retailer GNC, revealing a spin off series that unfortunately didn’t feature the innovation we had seen in Neon Sport. Feedback on our end said it all with followers commenting, expensive, overpriced, and a waste of time. While the products in the range did speak for themselves, the topic of Royal died down rather quickly for us as Cellucor powered on announcing and launching their flavored Super-HD formula. As well as confirm five new tastes for their dominating protein powder Cor-Whey in chocolate chip cookie dough, s’mores, velvet cake batter, white chocolate mocha, and fetti cake batter.
Even after all Cellucor had done in 2013, the brand still had some more left in the tank. These final bursts came in the form of the complex amino formula Alpha Amino, and the more important effort, our first ever Protein Wars. For those who missed it, we combined 32 of the most popular protein supplements, submitted by followers, to go one on one in a knockout tournament titled the Protein Wars. The competition saw a lot of heated battles, but none more heated than the grand final where Cor-Whey went up against Marc Lobliner’s MTS Nutrition Whey. In the earlier rounds Cellucor proved that when they called on their fans, there was nothing they couldn’t do. This was further shown in the last battle where Cor-Whey fought back against MTS whey, coming back from a 10% vote share to win on 66%.
No matter what kind of products you like, 2013 saw Cellucor reach out to almost every individual. Whether you purchased a formula of theirs or not, you would’ve at least considered it at some point. And if not considered it, then you would have heard about one or two of theirs. There wasn’t a month that went by where Cellucor were out of sight or ear shot, they made a point to keep busy and stay relevant. Despite their downs, they had a lot more ups, resulting in today’s runner-up spot on our list of Top 5 Brands, and our first ever Protein Wars title.
