In an inspired “breakopen” moment, Fuzzy Duck vodka coolers were born.

by Kathleen Martin

In the late 1940s, engineer George de Mestral and his dog would often come back from hikes in the Swiss Alps covered in burrs. Curious about how the burrs stuck, de Mestral pulled out his microscope and had a look, discovering “hooks” on them that latched onto the fabric of his pants and to his dog’s fur. It was the birth of Velcro. 

Thirty years later, 3M scientist Art Fry was singing in his church choir but kept losing his place in his hymnal when his bookmarks fell out. Remembering that a colleague, Spencer Silver, had developed a temporary adhesive for which he couldn’t find a good application, Fry applied the glue to paper and created Post-It notes. 

Burrs had been sticking and bookmarks had been falling for centuries before those inventions. So what made de Mestral and Fry suddenly see things differently? 

American journalist Edward R. Murrow had it right when he said, “The obscure we see eventually. The completely apparent takes longer.” What might be even more accurate, though, is to say that de Mestral and Fry actually saw. They noticed. They had curious minds and they gave them the latitude to ponder something unusual that had happened to them. 

Marc Steuer, the senior vice-president of business development at California–based biopharmaceutical company Telik Inc., calls that kind of moment a “breakopen”: something stimulates you to consider things to which you usually pay little attention. “You can’t invent anything that’s not in the domain of possibilities,” he says, “and the domain of possibilities is hidden in the background unless something brings it forth.”

Three years later, Lawrence’s Fuzzy Duck vodka coolers entered the ready-to-drink (RTD) market in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The coolers have one-third less sugar than any other full-body cooler on the market and no syrupy aftertaste. Although Lawrence declined to reveal market share or revenue, he would say the company is growing steadily. 

“It’s David versus Goliath,” says Gary von Richter, Alcool New Brunswick Liquor’s category manager for beer, coolers, RTD, and refreshment products. “They’re up against big brands—Smirnoff, Bacardi, Mike’s Hard Lemonade. They’re a small player in terms of our RTD sales, but they’re not insignificant. They are very smart with their packaging, which has helped them.” 

The name and packaging for Fuzzy Duck are the product of even more “seeing.” “We were the new kid on the block in a volatile market,” says Lawrence. “We wanted a company name that would continuously promote a question about what we do. That way we could talk about it. ‘Where did you come up with the name Fuzzy Duck?’ is still the question I’m most frequently asked. Fuzzy Duck is a social drinking game in the U.K.” 

The packaging, created by Lawrence’s brother, Peter, a graphic designer, is a sleek black and grey, with the lowercase initials “fd.” in a circle at the centre. It adds class to the product and does what most coolers don’t: it targets males, whom Lawrence calls “closet cooler drinkers.” 

“If you go into a liquor store and look at the coolers on the shelves, they speak to the 18-year-old girl—very bright colours,” he says. “We wanted the exact opposite of that—something polished and simple looking, something unisex. Fuzzy Duck allows a male consumer to feel a little bit more secure drinking coolers. I mean, what’s a guy going to buy, a Fuzzy Duck or a Breezer?” 

The fact that Lawrence actually goes to liquor stores to size up the competition is exactly the discipline of creativity that Steuer is talking about: spending the time to think about things. Not always acting out of habit—whether you’re at the grocery store or walking down the road but taking time each day to act consciously, even while doing routine things. What are you seeing at the store? Who is talking? How do they sound? What do the buds on the tree look like? How do the clothes ripple on the line? 

“You can either be upset when you have burrs on your clothes, or you can invent Velcro,” says Steuer. “So is that a shift in the foreground? No. The burrs are the same burrs. Is there a shift in the background? Yes. My assertion about creativity is, change the background.”