John Bello

John Joseph Bello (March 30, 1946 in New Britain, Connecticut) is a marketing executive and entrepreneur best known for creating and building the SoBe brand of New Age beverages.

Bello, the son of the late Generoso “Jerry” and Edith (Melito) Bello, is a 1964 graduate of Plainville (Conn.) High School, where he played football, was student council president and was named to The National Honor Society. (Generoso Bello, a first-generation American born to Italian immigrant parents, lived in Italy between the ages of 3 and 18, returned to the U.S. in 1931 after escaping Mussolini's reign of terror.)

Bello went on to matriculate at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., on a Navy ROTC scholarship. There, he played football for two years, played in a rock band called “The What Four,” and was awarded a bachelors degree in history in 1968. While at Tufts he also met the love of his life, the former Nancy Nelson, to whom he was married on Sept. 6, 1969.

Upon his graduation from Tufts, Bello served a four-year stint the Navy that included a tour of duty in South Vietnam where he was responsible for running a commissary on the Mekong Delta. There, he began to develop his business accumen, managing 60 soldiers who were responsible for running the base store as well providing food and drink for 24 riverboats on combat missions. Bello achieved the rank of Lieutenant (Senior Grade) and received the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V for meritorious service. [New England Journal of Entrepreneurship, Volume 7, No. 1; Spring 2004]

After he returned to the States, Bello entered Dartmouth College, where he was an Edward Tuck Scholar and graduated cum laude with an MBA in 1974. His first foray into the business world was with PepsiCo, where he worked in marketing and strategic planning positions. He moved on to General Foods, where he was involved with brand management with the Sanka and Maxwell House franchises. [Entrepreneurs Organization Fairfield/Westchester Conference, 10/18/06] He also picked up some experience with athletic wear, serving as product director for Keds Brand footwear. [The Lyon & Bendheim Alumni Lecture Series, Tufts University, 10/8/003]

In 1979, he joined the National Football League, where he ascended to the position of president of NFL Properties in 1987. At NFLP, he is credited with transforming licensed apparel from a small business selling novelty merchandise in specialty stores into must-have fashion, particularly among urban consumers and teens, sold at major chain sporting goods and department stores. In the process, during Bello's tenure at NFLP, the business from $30 million in retail sales to $3 billion when he left in 1993. In doing so, Bello created a business model that is now followed by the merchandising arms of all pro and college sports teams, leagues and associations. [E-Clips; Cornell University Department of Applied Economics and Management]

Bello left the NFL on Labor Day in 1993 amid controversy -- he was forced out by then-NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue for a conflict of interest for investing in a trading card company that NFL Properties did business with [New York Times, 3/31/1994] -- and headed back to the beverage business, taking a slaes job with Brooklyn, NY-based Ferollito, Vultaggio and Sons, makers of AriZona iced tea. But after about six months with AriZona, Bello's entrepreneurial spirit took over, and he left AriZona to create a partnership with Kevin McGovern and Tom Schwalm that became the South Beach Beverage Company, named after the trendy section of Miami.

The new company, based in Norwalk, Conn., marketed so-called "New Age" beverages -- exotic juice blends and ready-to-drink iced teas -- but got off to an inauspicious start. Perceived as nothing more than just another "me too" brand by distributors and mom & pop retailers up and down the street, South Beach faced formidable competition from its predecessors, including Snapple, Mystic, Nantucket Nectars and AriZona. South Beach needed a real point of differentiation in the marketplace, and it was here that Bello's marketing savvy turned the company's fortunes around.

Since the natives of South Beach called their enclave "SoBe," Bello decided to re-launch the brand under that moniker. Then, he would add trace elements of various herbs and nutrients -- such as ginseng, ginkgo biloba, guarana, carnitine, Echinacea, yohimbe, taurine and praline -- and promoted their benefits beyond hydration. He launched a "3G" line of drinks, all of which included energy boosters ginseng, ginkgo biloba and guarana. He also expanded the brand's iced tea portfolio to include such exotic offerings as Black Tea, Oolong Tea (with bee pollen), Green Tea (with Echinacea) and Red Tea (with selenium). Under Bello's direction, SoBe launched a line of "3C" Elixirs (containing calcium, carnitine and chromium) in envelope-pushing varieties such as Orange-Carrot, Orange Tomato (including lycopene), Energy (with guarana, yohimbe and arginina), Power (taurine, creatine and praline), Zen Blend (triple ginseng tea with schizandra), Wisdom (with ginkgo biloba, St. John's wort and gotu kola) and Eros (with dong quai, damiana, foti and zink). [Beverage Industry, July 1998]

He was also the creative force behind the now-famous dueling-lizards design, which has become an iconic logo in the consumer packaged goods industry. Finally, he gave the brand an "attitude" by enlisting the likes of athletes who were famous, but somewhat out of the mainstream-such as bombastic golfer John Daly and downhill skier Bode Miller-as official spokespersons for the brand.

Bello, himself, became part of his own guerrilla marketing effort, proclaiming himself the "Lizard King" in radio advertisements. (At speaking engagements, Bello was fond of saying outrageous comments such as, "Other brands give you graphics that look like Peter Max; we max your peter!")

Then, the SoBe marketing team, led by Bello, approached independent Snapple distributors -- those wholesalers that had non-exclusive deals with Snapple, which was then far and away the New Age beverage king -- and offered them a deal they couldn't refuse: very high margins and a small chunk or equity in the company. [E-Clips; Cornell University Department of Applied Economics and Management]

The result was nothing short of astounding. After coming from literally nothing in 1995, SoBe's sales climbing from $67 million in 1998 to $167 million in 1999. [The New York Times, July 20, 2000] The following year, the brand literally took off, riding the "good-for-you" trend among American consumers to break the quarter billion dollar barrier in 2000. [Tufts University E-News, 08/02/2001]

No longer a niche brand, the CSD giants, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, both attempted to acquire Bello's quirky beverage brand to enhance their own portfolios. " [Beverage Aisle, January 2001] " Pepsi eventually won out, purchasing South Beach Beverages for a reported $370 million cash on October 30, 2000. [The New York Times, 10/31/2000]

In 2001, he was named Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year in the Consumer Products category for his accomplishments at SoBe. [Beverage Industry, December 2001]

After Pepsi acquired the brand, Bello stayed on as the unit's CEO for three years before leaving to test the waters with other brands, experiencing varying degrees of success.

In 2003, Bello and another veteran marketer, Brian Burke, took on a small Tennessee-based line of food and beverages, Firefighter Brands. Burke was in charge of marketing the company's beverage line, while Bello worked on the food portfolio, called the "firehouse kitchen" line of baked nacho and kettle chips, trail mix, beef jerky and chili. All Firefighter Brands products sported a proprietary Maltese cross logo. [Hartford Courant, 10/27/2005] (A non-compete clause in his buy-out with Pepsi precluded Bello from participating in the beverage side of the company.) [www.bevnet.com, 8/20/2004]

In 2005, Bello signed on as chairman with Soup Kitchen International, which marketed soups made by Al Yeganeh, the New York-based soup chef made famous as the "Soup Nazi" on the popular "Seinfeld" TV show, for retail stores, and developed franchised restaurants. [The New York Times, 6/26/2005]

In the spring of 2006, Bello was appointed Chairman of the Board of the IZZE Beverage Company, a maker of sparkling juices. He is also a partner with Sherbrooke Capital, a growth capital firm dedicated to investing in leading, early stage health and wellness companies that led the $6.35 million equity-financing round for IZZE in early 2005. In addition, he serves on the board of Boathouse Sports, a Sherbrooke portfolio company. He is also President of JoNa Ventures, an investment and strategic management company. [Business Wire, 04/04/2006]

Bello resides in Rye, N.Y. with his wife of 38 years, Nancy. The couple has three children: Lauren (30), Lindsay (28) and John Michael (19).