Spindrift Hires Strick Walker as Chief Marketing Officer

cranberryraspberry_s1Spindrift is ramping up its marketing efforts with the addition of a CMO. Joining the team is Strick Walker, who left his post as director of global marketing at Patagonia to join the Massachusetts-based soda and seltzer brand. Prior to Patagonia, Walker held the position of senior director of global brand communications for Converse and prior to that was CMO for One Percent for the Planet, the environmental corporate philanthropy organization started by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard.

In a call with BevNET, Spindrift founder Bill Creelman said the creation of a chief marketing officer position comes “at the right time for the business,” as it aims to increase and expand the communication of its brand story, one surrounding its use of local, fresh ingredients.

“Beverages are the major leagues of brand competitiveness and sodas and seltzers in particular are an incredibly crowded space,” said Creelman. “We really wanted to do a stronger job at telling our story and dialing in on our key points of difference. With Strick on board, I’m really excited about how we’re going to be able to do that in a very compelling way.”

Walker will begin leading Spindrift’s marketing at a time when U.S. consumers continue to move away from all things associated with soda. Recently, in a response to that consumer concern, Spindrift’s craft soda category competitor DRY Soda rebranded as DRY Sparkling. Still, Creelman’s not quite ready to distance his brand from soda entirely.

“We’re all trying to figure out what the right language is to help consumers understand who we are and how we’re different,” he added. “But we also still want to embrace the Americana and history of soda while redefining what it is.”