Behind Poppi’s influencer-led Super Bowl commercial and social campaign

Even as content creators have become pivotal pieces of many brands’ Super Bowl marketing strategies, advertisers have largely continued to gravitate toward actors, music artists and other more traditional celebrities for commercials airing during the Big Game. Poppi challenged the Super Bowl status quo this year, making influencers not just a core part of its social media campaign to amplify its ad airing during Super Bowl LIX, but also giving them starring roles in the in-game spot itself. New: Poppi’s influencer vending machine backlash—what to know The gut health soda brand hired social media stars Alix Earle, Jake Shane and Robert Rausch for its commercial, which follows the trio through common scenarios where people often crave sugary sodas but feel guilty about doing so—such as while ordering food at a drive-thru or shopping at a convenience store. Poppi deliberately steered away from making a celebrity the star of its second Super Bowl ad, said Allison Ellsworth, co-founder and chief brand officer of Poppi. Content creators have “been part of [Poppi’s] DNA” since its launch five years ago, she told Ad Age. While the brand has occasionally “dabbled with big names” such as Post Malone, “it’s so inherent to us to use creator partners, because we are the soda of the next generation, which I think requires the voices of the next generation.” As the foundation of Poppi’s ad is the “relatable concept” of yearning for a healthier alternative to traditional sodas, “if you put someone in there that’s not relatable, it won’t work,” Ellsworth said. “Alix, Jake and Rob are all people who have been really close to the brand for a really long time." Earle, for instance, became an investor in the brand last May and was the sole focus of Poppi’s Coachella activation (which the brand dubbed “Coachearlea”) just a few weeks before that. “People know they’re Poppi people,” she said. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jake Shane (@passthatpuss) Brands such as e.l.f., Nerds and Sabra hummus have previously featured influencers in Super Bowl commercials, though they’ve always appeared in conjunction with Hollywood celebrities or brand mascots. Poppi’s ad focused on influencer talent while also showing others in various roles. Ellsworth refused to take the conventional route of relying on a celebrity cameo to create a buzzy Super Bowl spot, she said. When ad agencies started pitching ideas for Poppi’s in-game commercial to the brand last fall, nearly all of those campaign concepts boiled down to “big Super Bowl celebrity,” she said, “and none of them were hitting. I don’t even remember a lot of them.” While Poppi was in the middle of that pitching process, a series of evergreen ads the brand had been working on for linear TV and streaming also began rolling in, Ellsworth said. When she and her team saw those ads, produced by creative agency Virtue Worldwide (the same agency Poppi worked with for its 2024 Super Bowl spot), they immediately knew “this was our Super Bowl ad,” she said. The brand condensed five of those six spots comprising its “Soda Thoughts” campaign into a single commercial for its second time in the game, she said. Tinuiti was the media agency behind the effort. NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today Beyond the TV screen Last year, Poppi’s decision to air its first Super Bowl ad came just four days before the game, which left the brand very little time to develop a larger marketing campaign around the commercial, Ellsworth said. “The amount of awareness overnight was just so incredible” that she and the Poppi team decided the day after last year’s Super Bowl that they would be running an ad in Super Bowl LIX, she said. From 2024: How Poppi’s surprise ad buy came together Poppi’s 60-second commercial reached 29.1 million households during the Super Bowl last year, making it the most-watched ad of the night, according to audience analytics firm Samba TV. It also drove a 250% spike in engagement and impressions on Poppi’s Instagram and a 70% increase in followers on its TikTok account, according to the brand. Additionally, Poppi saw its Amazon sales, website traffic and Google search volume soar 10 times higher after its Super Bowl ad than when it ran the same commercial during other TV events in the weeks leading up to the game, such as the NFL Conference Championships or the Grammys, the brand said. Even with its condensed pregame timeline last year, Poppi managed to set up collaborations with influencers at the Big Game such as Olivia Culpo, a model who was then engaged and is now married to San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, and Keleigh and Miles Teller, who joined Taylor Swift in the Kansas City Chiefs suite. Having months, rather than days, to plan its social and influencer strategy for Super Bowl LIX allowed Poppi to execute a much more expansive campaign this time around, Ellsworth said. The brand shipped hot pink Poppi vending machines to nearly three dozen WAGs (the wives and girlfriends of pro athletes) and influencer football fans “in all of the major NFL cities,” including Chanel Iman, wife of New England Patriots defensive tackle Davon Godchaux. Poppi also delivered vending machines to a handful of close brand partners, such as TikTok creators Kaeli Mae and Rachel Sullivan; Fortnite streamer Cody “Clix” Conrod; and Jake Shane, one of the stars of its Super Bowl ad, to supply beverages for their Super Bowl watch parties, she said. @kaelimaee SHE IS STOCKED & SHE IS PERFECT🥹🥤🍋🍒🍊 #poppi #poppivendingmachine #vendingmachine #restock #restocking #asmr #asmrsounds #viral ♬ snooze sped up - astrycuh Poppi also had Earle, Shane and Rausch tease the brand’s Super Bowl ad with behind-the-scenes photos and videos, Ellsworth said. Last week, Shane posted photos from the set of the drive-thru vignette in the commercial and Rausch shared bloopers from his scene. Additionally, Poppi sponsored the Super Bowl parties of four fraternities at Tulane University in New Orleans, the city hosting the Super Bowl, and gave them Poppi-branded sweatshirts made for the event, she said. The brand also installed one of its vending machines at The Boot, a college bar close to the university. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Robert Rausch (@robert_rausch) Poppi will continue airing 30-second cuts of its “Soda Thoughts” campaign on both linear and streaming channels over the next several months, Ellsworth said. Poppi also plans to use the vending machines for future brand events, product launches and marketing campaigns. The influencers who received the vending machines will be returning them after the Super Bowl, the brand said. “You don’t just do the Super Bowl ad and go, ‘Okay, cool, we’re done now,” she said. “Millions of people just learned about our brand, so how do we continue to retarget them and get in front of them? The push afterward is almost just as big … We have a huge plan on the back end to continue to make sure Poppi’s at the forefront and people know it’s the soda for them. This is just the kickoff.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Alix Earle (@alix_earle) Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Click here

Behind Poppi’s influencer-led Super Bowl commercial and social campaign

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