Vita Coco coconut water cocktail expands into hangover advertising and marketing

For practically twenty years, Vita Coco has marketed its coconut water as a brand new method to hydrate health-conscious customers. This 12 months, it is altering pitch.

Beverage firm rising its namesake model with partnerships in new use instances and alternatives diego Advertising and marketing the drink on a canned cocktail and as a hangover assist.

Co-founder Mike Kirban in contrast Vita Coco’s transformation to Ocean Spray, an agricultural cooperative promoting cranberry merchandise.

“Ocean Spray is a model that is 4 occasions the dimensions of ours, all based mostly on one ingredient,” the corporate’s government chairman instructed CNBC. “And we ought to be larger than Ocean Spray fairly rapidly, as a result of I feel coconuts are cooler than cranberries.”

Based in 2004, Vita Coco started as a coconut water model, however has since expanded into different beverage classes, resembling vitality drinks and water. Its namesake model nonetheless accounts for three-quarters of the corporate’s income, reaching $335.8 million within the first 9 months of 2022.

The corporate went public in October 2021, simply earlier than the marketplace for preliminary public choices dried up as inflation, the struggle in Ukraine and financial uncertainty weighed on traders.

Vita Coco’s inventory is up lower than 1% since its IPO, but it surely’s outperformed many different shopper corporations that went public across the identical time, resembling candy inexperienced And all birds,

In Could, Kirbon transitioned from co-CEO to his present function on the firm, leaving boston beer Veteran Martin Roper as sole chief government – one other step in Vita Coco’s evolution.

Simply months earlier than Vita Coco’s IPO, each Coca-Cola And PepsiCo Coconut water got here out. Coke bought Zico again to its founder because it diminished its portfolio, and Pepsi spun off One as a part of the $3.3 billion sale of its juice enterprise.

Regardless of the beverage giants’ dimension, they’ve been unable to compete with Vita Coco, which is credited with bringing coconut water to the US and nonetheless holds 50% of the market, excluding its private-label enterprise.

His exit from the section opened up a brand new distribution route for Vita Coca. So long as Coke and Pepsi had been within the coconut water enterprise, their contracts with venues starting from stadiums to varsity campuses excluded Vita Coco.

With the momentum for brand new progress alternatives, Vita Cocoa is now getting into bars and eating places. The primary part of the plan includes teaming up with Diageo for 3 canned cocktails combining Captain Morgan rum and Vita Coco coconut water: a mojito, a pina colada and a strawberry daiquiri.

“Should you go to Brazil or Southeast Asia, you combine coconut water with cocktails,” Kirbon mentioned. “With Diageo, the thought is to start out a behavior of consuming coconut water cocktails with ready-to-drink customers.”

Kirbon mentioned Vita Coco would accomplice with a spirits firm for its broader on-premises enlargement plans, however declined to call the accomplice.

Through the years, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage corporations have been leaning on one another’s model fairness and experience to realize so-called “throat share”. For instance, Captain Morgan can introduce itself to Vita Coco’s health-conscious, youthful customers, whereas Vita Coco advantages from Rum’s mass-market attraction.

Vita Coco can be leaning into its popularity as a hangover “treatment.”

Since late 2019, the model has used New Yr’s Day as a method to pitch hangover restoration kits and subscriptions that showcase its merchandise in collaboration with Postmates, Lyft, and Reef Kitchen.

this 12 months partnering with Doordash For promotion the Monday morning after the Tremendous Bowl.

The advertising and marketing technique is considerably of a reversal after years of opposing the affiliation.

“With our board, there was all the time a dialogue,” Kirbon mentioned. “While you speak about advertising and marketing, are we supposed to speak about hangovers? Is it okay to speak about us?”

And it is not finished there. After the hangover subsides, Vita Cocoa desires to be the non-dairy milk in your espresso.

In late January, the model introduced that it had partnered with Alfred Espresso, a high-end chain with areas in California and Texas, to create a non-dairy coconut milk for using its baristas. Might

Vita Coco plans to develop a product designed particularly for espresso—completely different from the coconut milk it sells in supermarkets nationwide—to different espresso outlets and finally retailer cabinets.