Poppi renamed a vinegar tonic “soda” and let creators fill the shelf.
A $400K Shark Tank deal became a $1.95B PepsiCo sale in May 2025. Poppi sells through grocery, not its own checkout: even the Add to Cart button on its site hands you to Amazon, Walmart or Target.
BLOOM10X did not work with Poppi. This breakdown uses public sources only, linked below.
- 2017Sold as Mother Beverage at Whole Foods after a buyer found the farmers’ market booth
- 2018Shark Tank: $400K for 25%, about $500K in revenue that year
- Mar 2020Renamed poppi, moved to cans, launched nationally the week stores shut
- 2023Annual sales reportedly pass $100M
- Feb 2024First of three Super Bowl ads in a row
- May 2025PepsiCo closes the $1.95B purchase
Poppi was private and is now owned by PepsiCo. Sales figures are company or founder statements reported by the press, not audited numbers.
What the public figures add up to.
Each tile uses only cited inputs. “Our math” is plain arithmetic on them.
Five plays behind the sale.
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Rename the product, keep the formula
It started as Mother Beverage, an apple cider vinegar drink in glass bottles. At the farmers’ market the pitch that worked was “try this better-for-you soda” (2). In 2020 it became poppi, in bright cans, with the same idea inside (2, 5).
Copy this: test the category word in your first ad line and product title. Call it what buyers already shop for, not what is in it.
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Put the founder on TikTok when stores closed
The national launch landed on March 3, 2020, with in-store sampling off the table. Ellsworth posted her own story instead, from her health problems to pitching Shark Tank nine months pregnant, and says her videos passed 3 billion views (2).
Copy this: film the founder answering one buyer question a week on a phone. No studio, no script beyond the first line.
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Pay creators to point at a shelf
Many of Poppi’s live Meta ads run under creators’ names “with Poppi,” tagged #poppipartner. On Nov 10, 2026 they named Costco, Sam’s Club and a Taco Bell tie-in, not a checkout (8). Gifting can backfire: 32 vending machines sent to creators before the 2025 Super Bowl drew a public backlash (4).
Copy this: run your best creator posts as partnership ads, and match the gift to the creator’s size.
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Cast creators in the big ad
Poppi bought Super Bowl spots in 2024, 2025 and 2026 (3, 6). The 2025 spot starred comedian Jake Shane, creator Alix Earle and reality star Rob Rausch, faces its buyers already followed (9).
Copy this: skip the Super Bowl, keep the casting. Pay two creators your buyer follows to star in your hero video.
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Make the website a store finder
On drinkpoppi.com, Add to Cart asks for a zip code and sends you to Amazon, Walmart or Target. The Cranberry Fizz page shows no price at all, and one live ad links to the same retailer-cart service, not the site (7, 8).
Copy this: only do this if stores are most of your sales. A Shopify brand that sells online should keep its checkout and its customer list.
“We went from apple cider vinegar drink to revolutionizing soda for the next generation.”
Small numbers, then a shelf, then a deal.
From $0.5M to $1.95B
How an ad becomes a store sale
“There was no such thing as the modern soda set.”
How “Soda Thoughts” sells in 60 seconds.
Poppi’s 2025 Super Bowl spot, 313,882 views on its YouTube. Our wireframe, built from its transcript and description, not its footage.
- 1Hook: a craving everyone has“Right this second… someone really wants a soda.” The product is not named yet.
- 2The objection, said out loud“Soda feels like a lot of sugar” and other drinks have “too much buzz, no flavor.”
- 3Faces the buyer already followsJake Shane, Alix Earle and Rob Rausch overthink their order, per the video description.
- 4A chant instead of a claim“Get a poppi, get a poppi, get a poppi.” The name is repeated three times in two seconds.
- 5Show the range“What a lineup.” Many flavors means one will fit you.
- 6One proof line, last“A soda with 5 g of sugar… it’s good.” The only number in the ad.
Three official Poppi spots to study.
Creators, Costco, a store cart.
Four of the about 55 ads live on Poppi’s page on Nov 10, 2026. Three send people to a store or a retailer cart.
“Cranberry Fizz is back”
A six-second seasonal video. The link goes to click2cart.com, the same retailer-cart service the site uses, not to drinkpoppi.com.
The copy repeats the three-part claim from the can: 5g of sugar, prebiotics, “ingredients you can love.”
“On sale at @costco through 11/15”
A creator’s own Costco haul video, run as a partnership ad and tagged #poppipartner.
The offer is a retailer’s sale with an end date. Poppi pays for reach, Costco takes the order.
“@drinkpoppi x @tacobell”
A 47-second creator video about a limited-time Poppi drink at a Las Vegas Taco Bell.
A brand collab turned into paid reach through a creator, not a brand post.
“Soda’s back, but better!”
A two-can static: a blank silver can against a poppi can, with the sugar and prebiotic lines under each. Meta lists several versions of it.
The comparison does the selling. No discount, no price.
Screenshots from the Meta Ad Library, taken Nov 10, 2026. Click an image to enlarge.
A product page with no price.
On Nov 10, 2026 the Cranberry Fizz page on mobile ended in a retailer button, not a checkout. Tap a number to see what each part does.
- 1Pack size as a banner“12 Pack” scrolls across the top, the size most stores stock.
- 2Seasonal story, no claimThe copy sells the holiday, not the gut health.
- 3Size menuSingle can, 4-pack or 12-pack. None shows a price.
- 4The retailer is the buttonA Walmart Grocery logo picked from the visitor’s zip code. “Click to save in your favorite cart.”
- 5Location first“Change Location” swaps the retailer list. On the home page the same widget offered Amazon, Walmart and Target.
- 6Flavor iconsOne tap to another flavor’s page, so a shopper who can’t find this one finds another.
Read it with four caveats.
- Stores did the selling. Poppi was in Whole Foods within weeks of its first market stall (2). Most Shopify brands sell online first; sending clicks to a retailer gives away the customer list.
- Claims cost money. Poppi moved to settle a class action over its health claims for $8.9M in March 2025 (3). Keep benefit copy to what the label can prove.
- Big gifts get judged. The vending machines earned millions of views and a backlash in the same week (4).
- What we’d do differently: for a brand without a shelf, copy Olipop instead, which kept 15–20% of sales on its own site with subscriptions. Use Poppi’s creator casting, not its checkout.
Six moves for a $1M–$10M Shopify brand.
- Lead your ads and product title with the category buyers shop, not your ingredient. Creative
- Post one founder video a week that answers a real buyer question. Hook rate
- Run your best creator posts as partnership ads. Partnership ads
- Gift product to small creators first, with a code and commission. Seeding
- If you sell in stores too, add a store finder to the menu, not to the checkout. Shopify development
- Price what a buyer is worth before you pay for a big ad. LTV calculator
Where every number comes from.
- PepsiCo, “PepsiCo completes acquisition of poppi, accelerating strategic portfolio transformation,” May 19, 2025. pepsico.com
- Sherin Shibu, “She Went From Being Ignored at a Farmer’s Market to Selling to PepsiCo for $1.95 Billion,” Entrepreneur, Mar 17, 2026. entrepreneur.com
- Amelia Lucas, “PepsiCo buys prebiotic soda brand Poppi for nearly $2 billion,” CNBC, Mar 17, 2025. cnbc.com
- Katie Hicks, “How Poppi’s Super Bowl vending machine campaign spiraled out of control,” Marketing Brew, Feb 14, 2025. marketingbrew.com
- CNBC, “Allison Ellsworth: 2026 CNBC Changemaker,” Feb 25, 2026. cnbc.com
- PepsiCo, “poppi debuts Super Bowl LX ad featuring Charli xcx and Rachel Sennott,” Feb 8, 2026. pepsico.com
- Poppi, home page, Cranberry Fizz product page and store finder, viewed Nov 10, 2026. drinkpoppi.com
- Meta Ad Library, Poppi page, ads 1139253248660524, 1600964945379207, 1551168367044002 and 2522688454904375, viewed Nov 10, 2026. facebook.com/ads/library
- Poppi, official YouTube channel: “The Future of Soda is Now” (Super Bowl LVIII, 2024), “Soda Thoughts” (Feb 9, 2025), “Make it poppi with Jake Shane” (Apr 7, 2026). youtube.com/@drinkpoppi
