Imagine you’re at a party, and someone pulls out a bright orange box that resembles a cigarette pack. But instead of offering you a light, your fellow partygoer wants to test the drugs on hand for fentanyl contamination.
Overdrive Defense, the latest venture from Brian Bordainick and Julie Schott—the entrepreneurs behind Gen Z darling brands Starface and Julie—wants this practice to be as normal as refilling a drink. Bordainick and Schott have a track record of “going into a highly stigmatized space and making it more accessible,” said Overdrive creative director Ryan Weaver.
With Overdrive, which sells kits to test for fentanyl contamination in recreational drugs as well as for spiked drinks, the aim is to normalize a safety practice to combat drug overdoses, which killed more than 80,000 people in the U.S. last year, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Like Starface’s pimple patches or Julie’s emergency contraception, Overdrive has leaned into bold packaging and lifestyle marketing tactics to appeal to younger audiences and disrupt a sector typically shrouded in shame. But since its debut last year, Overdrive has faced an uphill journey to win over consumers, retailers, and social platforms in a stigmatized area.
Now Overdrive is shifting its strategy to pave the way in a new category and appeal to a wider audience.
“The easiest way to de-stigmatize something is to not leave it in the shadows,” Weaver told ADWEEK. “The thing that will casualize this and help people find safety is being able to talk about it in a way that won’t freak them out.”
Bold marketing
In September 2024, Overdrive launched with a splash, unveiling its orange boxes of fentanyl test strips and sleek black and blue drink spiking test kits. The brand and its founders made the cover of The New York Times Style the following month.
Overdrive initially borrowed from the marketing playbooks of its sister brands Starface and Julie, which have both been playful, flashy, and humorous despite dealing in fraught subjects like acne and emergency contraception. For example, Julie, which has also debuted a cold sore treatment, dropped spring break merchandise and ran commercials poking fun at unsuitable boyfriends.
For Overdrive’s part, it has partied with skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and showed up at events “at the intersection of thrill and danger,” according to Weaver, such as X Games, ESPN’s action sports tournament; SummerSlam, WWE’s professional wrestling event; and the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
