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Famous for having made its name and fortune from a single product with little variation over many years, Red Bull is suddenly set to launch Red Bull Simply Cola as a premium, natural alternative to existing colas.

Made from "100% natural sources" Red Bull Simply Cola will be promoted as the only cola brand to contain real kola nut and coca leaf with no preservatives, additives, phosphoric acid, artificial colouring or flavours..

Red Bull Simply Cola will be available in on-trade and off-trade outlets in the UK from the end of April in 25cl and 35.5cl cans. It will also be launched in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Ireland and Russia and the US – where distribution will be limited to Las Vegas only.

The product will be launched on the back of an above and below the line marketing campaign created by Red Bull's global creative agency, the US based full service agency Kastner & Partners. UK media buying and planning will be handled by AMS. After the main launch, promotional activity will be integrated into existing marketing activity for the main Red Bull energy drink.

Red Bull UK Managing Director Nigel Trood said: "This is an incredibly exciting innovation for Red Bull and a fantastic addition to our portfolio. It may have been unexpected, but we're quite fond of surprising people and we thought it was about time we refreshed the cola category."

So, following the launch earlier this year of Pepsi's all natural variant Pepsi Raw, foodbev.com wonders if we are about to witness a rash of natural colas from all the estalished players.