Poppi: Taking Over Your Fridge...🍹

Hey!

We love buying some soda pop during our monthly grocery visits.

But here’s Coca-Cola’s shopping list:

2007 - Purchased Vitaminwater for $4.1 billion

2020 - Bought Fairlife

2021 - Bought a stake in BodyArmor

2024 - Buying Poppi?

Coca-Cola has been making some serious effort to branch out from sugary drinks and rumours have it that Poppi acquisition could be their next move. Poppi is a new-age soda brand that makes better-for-you drinks. In 2018, they were featured in S11 of Shark Tank U.S. as Mother Beverage.

Post airing on Shark Tank, the company rebranded to Poppi and now claims to be the  No. 1 selling soda brand on Amazon. In the functional soda market, they come second to Olipop’s 61% market share with a 34% dominance.

But who’s behind Poppi’s rise to fame?

The Poppi Playbook

After Shark Tank, Poppi was once again seen on the big screen with their Super Bowl 2024 ad. Unlike what you would expect, the commercial did not have big celebrities promoting the brand, but it rather was a montage of events and emotions Poppi would like to resonate with. The ad also had a very strong message that challenged the traditional soda market.

See, Poppi has always been a social-first brand, they first went viral when co-founder Allison Ellsworth made a TikTok sharing her personal and professional journey of building Poppi. In just 2 days of this video going live, the brand had already sold $75000 worth of products on Amazon.

Since then, Poppi has been actively working to nurture an online community for the brand. Their ‘Soda’s Back’ campaign from 2023 is a great example of how it encourages its consumers to become brand ambassadors.

It was their first big campaign and instead of traditional advertisements, they promoted the product by highlighting real social media posts from consumers. These posts were complimented with images featuring social media creators Poppi works with or who love Poppi.

In fact, their first ‘social out of home’ or sOOH campaign integrated influencers into the OOH campaign and strategy, had some pretty sweet results👇🏻

Not too bad for such a young brand!

David vs. Goliath

While Poppi is big on influencers, its counterpart Olipop took a more traditional approach with its first TV appearance, featuring Camilla Cabello.

Not to say that Poppi is anti-celebrities. In fact, you would often see Kylie Jenner, Hailey Bieber, Paris Hilton and many other celebrities rock their love for Poppi. However, they are not the first choice for the brand for a paid collaboration.

And it makes sense, aside from being a lot more affordable, influencers allow you to cater to a niche high-intent audience. To top it off, the relatability and familiarity with influencers make it easier for consumers to trust the brand they collaborate with.

So what do you think of Poppi’s breakthrough marketing leveraging consumers and influencers? Do share your thoughts by replying to this email.

Poppi isn't afraid to leverage influencers, and neither are we! In our next Influencer Matchmaking episode, we'll identify strategic partnerships to take their strategy to the next level. If you haven’t already subscribed to our YouTube channel and don’t know what we are talking about, head there now and see for yourself!

Until next time, see ya!

That’s it for this week! We’ll be back with another story next Tuesday. 👋🏼

While you're at it, check out our new stuff on YouTube and Instagram.

Was this newsletter sent to you by someone? Subscribe here & never miss an update.

Thousand Faces Club is an initiative by Phyllo. Phyllo is the universal API for creator data. Sign up for free!