Poppi’s influencer vending machine backlash—what marketers can learn

Super Bowl advertisers are increasingly teaming up with influencers before game day to build buzz and maximize excitement around their Big Game commercials. Poppi, however, found its in-game Super Bowl commercials overshadowed by the controversial influencer campaign surrounding its second Big Game ad—specifically, the hot pink vending machines it shipped to roughly three dozen influencers for their Super Bowl watch parties. Poppi faced an influx of criticism from social media users, largely on TikTok, after several influencers the gut health soda brand had partnered with for its Super Bowl push started posting videos flaunting their Poppi vending machines late last week. Dozens of netizens soon began picking apart Poppi’s campaign in posts of their own, calling out the brand’s decision to send the machines (which most assumed were permanent gifts) to a group of wealthy macro- and mega-influencers rather than brand fans. @juandchan I catch him grabbing one every hour at this point🤣😭 #juandchan @Drink Poppi ♬ original sound - Dami But the controversy set off by Poppi’s influencer campaign, which has endured throughout the week after Super Bowl Sunday, goes much deeper than vending machines. It’s a tipping point in the “much bigger level of fatigue in creator marketing that has kind of been rumbling in the background for some time,” Lucy Robertson, global head of brand marketing at influencer agency Buttermilk, told Ad Age. “It can be alienating when [consumers] just see two or three high-tier [influencers] that frequently get these opportunities being given these same opportunities again and again,” she said, especially when those social media stars “don’t necessarily have an affiliation with the brand or aren’t a true fan of the brand.” That feeling of exclusion is only heightened when those opportunities are lavish brand trips or extravagant gifts such as Poppi’s hot pink vending machines, she added. Sign up for our influencer marketing newsletter here Criticism of the overconsumption and waste involved in influencer marketing has steadily grown over the past few years, Robertson said. That push back against influencer culture has manifested in the form of social media trends such as “de-influencing,” which first emerged in early 2023, and last year’s “underconsumption” movement. At the same time, however, influencers have more sway over purchasing habits than ever, with 49% of all consumers buying at least one product per month based on an influencer post, according to data from social media management platform Sprout Social. “Audiences aren’t allergic to influencer gifting—they’re allergic to a sense of insincerity or a lack of fairness or consideration” in those gifting campaigns, said Grace Murray Vazquez, VP of strategy at influencer marketing agency Fohr. “Many of the creators they [Poppi] went out to were visibly wealthy, established creators. So I think a big piece of the backlash from audiences has been that sense of like, ‘What is the point of this? This is tone deaf.’” Many of the vending machine recipients were WAGs, the wives and girlfriends of (often wealthy) professional athletes, or affluent influencers with millions of followers such as Avery Woods, Rachel Sullivan and Kaeli McEwen. And indeed, the debate around Poppi’s influencer campaign truly exploded when rival prebiotic soda brand Olipop fanned the flames by sprinkling critical comments across several of the TikTok videos attacking Poppi’s vending machines, with its claim that each machine cost $25,000 particularly striking a nerve among consumers. @rachsullivan__ This is my Super Bowl @Drink Poppi ♬ Cannibal by Kesha - rapidsongs That purported cost quickly spread across a slew of posts denouncing the brand. But that cost “was not only fabricated, but inflated by 60%,” a Poppi representative told Ad Age, meaning the price of each vending machine was actually around $10,000. Allison Ellsworth, Poppi’s co-founder and chief brand officer, also indirectly called out Olipop for spreading that “misinformation” across TikTok in a video shared to the Poppi account in response to the vending machine controversy. The machines were also “never intended for one-time use,” the Poppi representative said, and the brand was going to be collecting them from the influencers to re-use for other brand events, product launches and marketing campaigns. But knowing the real cost of the vending machines likely won’t improve consumers’ perception of the Poppi campaign, said Rachel Karten, a social media consultant and author of the newsletter Link in Bio. Marketers tend to view these extravagant gifting campaigns (which Karten refers to as “experiential gifting”) as an opportunity to generate millions of organic views on posts from influencers showing off those gifts to their audiences, but those posts ultimately focus on “the lavish, amazing experience that this influencer gets” rather than providing value to the consumer, she said. That becomes especially frustrating for consumers when “it’s the same influencers who keep getting treated like royalty over and over again,” she added. Join Ad Age for the Gen Z Career Forum on March 4 in New York, part of out three-day NextGen Marketing Summit. “As a marketing line item, [experiential gifting] makes sense. But I think the optics of experiential gifting are not very good if you are a community-first brand,” which is how Poppi has positioned itself, Karten said. “To the brand, it looks like a marketing expense, but to the consumer, it feels like very over-the-top gifting. And consumers aren’t charmed by over-the-top gifting anymore.” Tarte Cosmetics stirred up a TikTok controversy similar to Poppi’s last year when it gifted $700 Hermès bracelets to a select group of influencers as part of its holiday marketing campaign. That was on top of the repeated backlash the beauty brand has faced over the years for taking influencers on a series of luxurious brand trips. Several consumers have even drawn parallels between the two brands and dubbed Poppi the “Tarte of soda,” Karten said. With these lavish gifts and all-expenses-paid getaways, “the thinking is, ‘If we go bigger and more expensive and more attention-grabbing, there’s no way that the influencer won’t post about it,’” Vasquez said. “But that just ends up being about what’s in it for the brand and what’s in it for the influencer. There’s nothing in it for the audience.” NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today A ‘consumer-first lens’ Despite the viral backlash toward Poppi and Tarte’s gifting campaigns, marketers don’t need to abandon influencer gifting altogether, Karten said. They should, however, prioritize working with creators and consumers who are part of the brand community rather than solely focusing on getting those gifts in front of as many eyeballs as possible, she said. For instance, a brand planning to mail PR packages to 100 influencers could set aside 20 of those boxes for its “most loyal fans,” she said. Poppi’s vending machine campaign likely wouldn’t have drawn as much backlash as it did if the brand had incorporated several members of the Poppi community into its gifting campaign on top of the mega-influencers and WAGs, Robertson noted. Sending gifts to creators with smaller audiences (and whose content is typically less saturated with other brand partnerships) is also more likely to resonate with Gen Z and millennial consumers. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of 13-39-year-old consumers prefer to receive brand and product recommendations from creators with small audiences over “big influencers,” according to data from youth market research firm YPulse. Poppi is aiming to resolve some of the controversy around its vending machine campaign by turning to its community to determine where to send the machines next, “via events, social giveaways and nominations in the weeks to come,” a Poppi representative said. Ellsworth also recognized the brand’s community in the TikTok video where she addressed the backlash to the vending machine campaign. @drinkpoppi we love our poppi community 🩷 tell us where they should go next 👇 ♬ original sound - Drink Poppi “Creator marketing has always been a staple of Poppi’s brand since we launched in 2020. But I know that it’s you, our community, that has been the biggest part of our success,” she said in the video. “We want to work with you guys to get [the vending machines] out to the places you’d like to see them out in the world.” Consumers generally tend to be more receptive to brand-sponsored posts from creators than posts linked to influencer gifting campaigns, Vasquez said. “Overwhelmingly, the sentiment from consumers has become being totally okay with creators being paid if brands are working with influencers in a way where the content comes through as natural and audience-first,” she said. “Great influencer marketing doesn’t interrupt or corrupt the best parts of being online. It becomes a part of them.” Additionally, over-the-top gifts aren’t as important as getting those gifts into the hands of creators with a meaningful connection to the brand and who are likely to “have something to say about it to their audience that brings the audience value,” she added. For example, when influencer Trisha Paytas shared a TikTok video in the middle of the Poppi vending machine backlash that was tied to a different gifting push by the brand last month, TikTok users mocked her lackluster response to the extravagant delivery of Poppi merch and sodas. Many latched onto the fact that Paytas was unfamiliar with what prebiotic soda even was. @trishlikefish88 lol they took it back with them but still was funny 🤣 not getting paid. They did give me sweats and a free Poppi can lol ♬ original sound - trishapaytas “To me, it’s more about putting everything through a customer-first lens. Like, if you were the consumer, would this feel good to see?” Karten said. “Whether it’s doing more customer-first activations or just keeping their opinions in your mind as you’re deciding things, it feels like this year, more than ever, brands should be thinking that way.”

Poppi’s influencer vending machine backlash—what marketers can learn

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