A new kind of soda.
When I joined Olipop to help establish and build out their in-house creative department, they had gained a small but enthusiastic following in the wellness market by defining themselves as a “healthy alternative to soda”. The problem is, people love soda. And they aren’t necessarily looking to replace it.
So in order to scale beyond a wellness sub-category, we needed to reposition the brand without sacrificing its successful product narrative.
By redefining Olipop as “A New Kind of Soda”, we stopped pushing against soda brands and became one ourselves, unlocking new narratives, brand behaviors, partnership opportunities, and mass distribution channels.
So in order to scale beyond a wellness sub-category, we needed to reposition the brand without sacrificing its successful product narrative.
By redefining Olipop as “A New Kind of Soda”, we stopped pushing against soda brands and became one ourselves, unlocking new narratives, brand behaviors, partnership opportunities, and mass distribution channels.
We started behaving like a soda brand, leaning into our design system to let the brand identity carry through from packaging into marketing channels.
This positioning also let us do things typical soda brands can’t do - like partner with local food co-ops to launch new flavors, celebrate body diversity, show children drinking the product, and activate at Whole Foods and other health-focused retailers.
As we built the brand, we also provided educational content that reinforced and validated our product narrative. By balancing hip and happy soda advertising with credible, peer-reviewed content about gut health and prebiotic fiber, we built deep customer trust and loyalty - turbocharging our SEO results at the same time.
Defining ourselves as A New Kind of Soda gave us the ability to choose when we’d act like a classic soda brand, and when we’d veer from the playbook. For our summer “soda with food” campaign (a tried and true category tactic) we leaned into authenticity, with a series of intimate dinner parties hosted by celebrity chefs around the country, captured in a recipe book and content series that reinforced our commitment to building healthy communities.
