Functional latte maker Taika has secured the celebrity partnership it’s been dreaming of since the day it took its name, as Oscar-winning actor and filmmaker Taika Waititi has joined the company as Chief Creative Officer.
Launched in 2020 by CEO Michael Sharon and COO and Head of Product Kal Freese, Taika produces canned RTD coffee and matcha lattes enhanced with ingredients like ashwagandha, L-theanine and Lion’s Mane. The brand took its name from the Finnish word for “magic,” but according to Freese they had long hoped they could grow the brand to a point where they could work with Waititi, the New Zealand-born director of Jojo Rabbit and two mega-popular Thor films, who they felt made sense as a celebrity partner not just for his name, but for a shared ethos around creativity.
“We think of Taika, the brand, as fueling creativity,” Freese told BevNET. “And Taika, or T.W. [Tee-Dubs] as we call him internally, his work is all about that in terms of his films and everything around it. And so it just felt like the perfect match on so many levels.”
It took some serendipity for the brand to connect its new partner: According to Sharon, he was attending a party last year in Los Angeles while wearing a branded shirt, prompting a woman to tell him she “has a friend named Taika.” Those conversations developed into a business relationship with the director, who had been passingly familiar with the brand previously, ultimately agreed to come in as an equity partner.
“I’m excited to come on board with Taika Inc. in this new role,” Waititi said in a statement. “The melding of Taika the coffee with Taika the person is not only insanely obvious, but it also allows me to wear a hat with my name on it and not look like a narcissist. It tastes great and most importantly, it keeps me from napping when I should be working.”
With Waititi now acting as the brand’s CCO, Freese said Taika is positioning itself as an energy-boosting beverage brand for any creative pursuit. The partnership’s first creative output – an online promotional video in which Waititi cheekily explains his new role at the “small boutique mega corp” – premiered this morning.
“Right now we’ve been focused on partnering together more on the visual creative side and figuring out how we better communicate the ‘Fueling Creativity’ message around Taika,” Freese said. “The goal is, if you think of Red Bull as synonymous with extreme sports, how can we start building Taika to be that for creative work, and kind of everything that T.W. embodies.”
While “creativity” has always been a cornerstone for Taika, Freese said the company’s decision to make it the brand’s north star evolved through its various projects and rebranding efforts since launching in 2020.
In 2021, Taika partnered with web3 collective Friends With Benefits (FWB) to develop a “decentralized” yerba mate drink, called Mateverse, where everything from the formulation to packaging was determined through a vote by FWB members. Freese cited that experience as helping to reinforce the brand’s focus on creativity and created a loyal consumer base within the FWB community, while also serving as a “good exercise” in managing partnerships. However, as the web3 and cryptocurrency markets have faced more volatility in the year since the Mateverse launch, the company is exploring new opportunities for mainstream growth, some of which Waititi may be able to help provide through his platform.
Landing a partner of Waititi’s profile marks a significant win for a brand whose presence remains primarily online. The products are currently sold in about 1,500 stores, most recently adding Sprouts nationwide, alongside retailers like Erewhon, Bristol Farms, Foxtrot, BevMo! and Gelson’s. The company reported 120% year-over-year revenue growth in 2022 and, by the end of this year, Freese said the brand expects to be in about 4,000 stores across the country.
“Overall, what we’ve learned in the beverage space is that we need to stay lean where we can and work hard,” Freese said.