In less than a year, Overdrive has achieved a few milestones, with two products on the market, more than 100,000 Instagram followers, and selling its fentanyl test kit in thousands of CVS stores nationwide—becoming the first non-CVS branded fentanyl test kit carried by the retailer.
While Overdrive initially focused on “community building, brand building, and entertainment” through event, social, and creator marketing, according to Weaver, the company is now focused on ramping up sales. To do that, it’s making a key change in how it talks about its business.
At the beginning, Overdrive said it was working in “harm reduction,” a space that has historically been dominated by nonprofits and charities. Now it says it’s in the business of “nightlife safety” and is the first commercial brand to break into that category.
“We looked around and realized we’re one of the first businesses in a new vertical,” Weaver said. “There are not a lot of other people talking about this from a business perspective, with the goal of developing the best products possible.”
Fighting stigma
The motivation behind this change in language is to overcome stigma and help people understand the products. Though retailers like Amazon, Gopuff, and CVS—which also carries Starface and Julie–already stock Overdrive, others have been hesitant to sell products that “could be seen as drug paraphernalia,” Weaver explained, “when really they’re safety tools.”
Overdrive has also faced hesitancy from social platforms, where its content has sometimes been flagged or suppressed. The brand’s team typically has to avoid using certain terms like fentanyl, date rape, or overdose in posts, Weaver said.
Over the next year, Overdrive will ramp up its product-focused, educational marketing to behave more like a “classic CPG” brand, Weaver said.
Its goal now is answering an age-old dilemma: “How do we educate and help sales scale rapidly, while still being creative?” said Weaver. “So that cool lifestyle energy starts to get matched by more product focused marketing that can create awareness around the problems at stake and how our tools work.”
Marrying AI with human creativity
A key part of Overdrive’s strategy now is experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI), Weaver said. It will be relying on generative AI tools, from Midjourney to Claude to ChatGPT and others, to create a higher volume of online content and videos at speed.