This year’s pre-game show began well before Lady Gaga’s performance and no doubt the Big Game hype will bleed beyond this week as marketers work to squeeze the most out of their $8 million per 30-second ad spends.
That is especially true in beverage where poppi has taken a “full-funnel” approach to keeping awareness at an all time high.
The prebiotic soda brand warmed up its marketing arm well-before kick off this year, doling about about $800,000 on custom digital vending machines (about $25,000 each, per Olipop) for 32 high-profile influencers including social media personality and poppi investor Alix Earle, comedian Jake Shane and “Love Island” star Rob Rausch.
- Corresponding, sponsored posts flooded Instagram and TikTok last week showing the bright pink machines being delivered or clips of creators grabbing a can from the fully-stocked vending stations.
- A single post from lifestyle influencer @kaelimaee has over 2.3 million likes as of this morning.
But the reaction videos also followed as poppi’s customer base aired its outrage that the brand would keep giving perks to celebrities and skip over those supporting the drink brand with their wallets day-to-day. Many of the videos questioned whether this was an “out of touch” campaign, or a brilliant marketing strategy. A few dozen of the reaction videos have notched viewcounts well into the hundreds-of-thousands range so we’d say it’s likely the latter.
Ahead of its Super Bowl commercial debut in 2024, Poppi generated organic hype and awareness, marking the first time a better-for-you soda had elbowed its way into a prime time spot typically held on to by big players like Coca Cola and Pepsi.
(It should be noted that poppi’s 2025 Super Bowl ad campaign was created by VIRTUE Worldwide, the marketing firm behind Coca Cola’s AI and AR-backed Coke Creations activation)
This year it worked to recreate that anticipation, taking a bigger risk – both financially and with the potential to alienate its fans – but the ROI seems to be running in the right direction.
According to Ali VanOverbeke, marketing director for waste-free beverage vending machine company Kadeya, each machine would have needed to generate 3.12 million impressions for the stunt to break even (assuming an $8 CRM). Some of the influencer videos have already surpassed the 16M mark and that was all less than 24 hours after the brand’s actual $8 million Superbowl ad hit the airwaves. (That spot brought the campaign full circle as it took aim at the big soda players themselves).
This year, poppi has survived lawsuits and negative headlines taking aim at its health benefits, suggesting this small bout of outrage will likely fizzle fast. The New York Times claims that this year’s Super Bowl ads overall relied more on celebrity faces than creative concepts, so maybe poppi was one play ahead all along.