Marysville resident Brian Pitzer, founder and CEO of ávitae, is making a splash across the country with his new sports drink.

The name ávitae means “Water of Life,” according to Pitzer, and is currently sold in 25 states.

“When I was in college, I used to throw caffeine pills in Gatorade and that’s how I got my pick-me-up,” he said. “After I graduated, I started throwing caffeine pills in water and it’s real nasty. It’s like throwing aspirin in water.”

Pitzer thought if he could find a way to make the water taste like water without adding anything else besides caffeine, he could corner a new market.

“Carbonated soft drinks are a $20-billion a year industry in the U.S. alone,” he said. “Diet drinks make up half of that. People drink the diet because they want the caffeine but not all the other stuff.”

The idea became reality about five and a half years ago. Pitzer quit his day job about a year into the development.

“I loved what I did but I had been working all my life and I knew at some point, some-thing was going to come around,” he said. “I just didn’t want to be in a position where I look back and wish I would have (done something).”

He started doing research, which included lots of phone calls to food scientists, chemists, polyresin experts, bottlers and packers. He also worked with a graphic artist to help with marketing concepts.

One of those concepts is the bottle itself, shaped like a cone with a wide bottom and cap the same size as a regular water bottle. He had a graphic designer put the concept on paper and took it to a bottler.

“When I said, ‘can we make a bottle look like this?' they said, ‘no, you can’t do that.’ I said ‘why not?' and they said ‘well, I don’t know.’ They went and tried it.”

It worked and the unique shape of an ávitae bottle was born.

“Realistically, all great brands are pure marketing,” he said. “When the bottle is in a cooler or on a grocery shelf and it’s a regular bottle, it’s not going to stand out. We originally started with the shape and it’s stayed the same, but we’ve gone through 15 label revisions and we’re going through No. 16 right now.”

The company has approached marketing with a 21st-century outlook, Pitzer said.

“We can’t go about traditional advertising in most instances,” he said. “Getting people to talk about it is key and getting people to notice it by doing unique things tends to be key in that.”

Word of mouth is the company’s marketing strategy, although it also uses social media. In addition, he said, the product takes advantage of the recent interest in natural foods and healthy living to boost sales.

“We’re playing against the No. 1 and No. 13 most-valuable brands in the world,” Pitzer said. “When you’re playing against a brand whose name is worth $70 billion alone in Coca-Cola, you can’t fight toe-to-toe; you need to fight a little more uniquely.”

The company caught the attention of the Union County Economic Development Partnership and recently relocated from Franklin County.

Eric Phillips, executive director of the Union County Economic Development Partnership, said ávitae is a great company to have in the area.

“The popularity of its product continues to grow and the company has a promising future,” he said. “We are thankful that ávitae chose Union County for its expansion.”