Dive Brief:
- Zevia is enlisting Cardi B as a spokesperson who can read between the lines of coded conversation for a new national marketing campaign titled “Real Talk Interpreter,” the brand’s largest yet, according to a press release.
- The partnership with the rapper comes to life in a pair of humor-focused spots that draw a connection between Cardi B’s preference for real talk that cuts through the fluff to the better-for-you soda brand’s use of real ingredients.
- Along with the ads, Zevia is inviting consumers to share complex conversations, such as group chat drama, with Cardi B, who will offer her take on what people really mean. Select submissions will be amplified on the artist and Zevia’s social channels.
Dive Insight:
Zevia is leaning hard into Cardi B’s unfiltered persona for its biggest campaign to date. The CPG marketer in March named the “Bodak Yellow” artist as a shareholder and ambassador while unveiling a sponsorship of her Little Miss Drama Tour.
“Real Talk Interpreter,” which spans streaming TV, social media, retail elements and a sweepstakes, brings Cardi B closer into Zevia’s advertising strategy and shows how the brand is trying to tap into consumer culture as it contends with an increasingly competitive better-for-you soda category.
Humor is a focus of the creative, with Cardi B sitting in on conversations where people dance around what they’re actually trying to say before the rapper interrupts to share her thoughts while sporting over-the-top outfits. In one spot, a school guidance counselor tells a mom that her son is “still finding his footing academically” before Cardi B rolls in to give her take while sipping Zevia.
“He’s saying your son is stupid,” she notes, before switching sides and acting as a “Real Talk Interpreter” for the flustered mom.
The other ad, “Potluck,” takes the same approach to an awkward community gathering. Zevia worked with creative studio De-Yan on the campaign, which spotlights Zevia’s Orange Creamsicle and Creamy Root Beer flavors and underscores its use of natural ingredients.
The “Real Talk Interpreter” concept will also have a social component, with Cardi B trying to parse out loaded language shared by consumers in thorny group chats and confusing dating-app conversations. In addition, Zevia is introducing retail displays featuring the celebrity and will run a sweepstakes offering the chance to win prizes like autographed merchandise.
Zevia, which sweetens its products with the natural ingredient stevia, has been working to carve a “refreshingly real” position through marketing. Ads from earlier this year skewered the artificial intelligence craze by depicting a creepy robot coworker who malfunctions when encountering Zevia. The company sees Cardi B as a way to shore up its approach to communicating authenticity.
“To have a partner who’s really meaningful in culture could obviously help us from a business and a marketing perspective, but we really wanted to find someone who was willing to do a less traditional deal with us, one that would be longer-term,” Zevia CMO Kirsten Suarez previously told Marketing Dive of the Cardi B relationship. “We are in a deal for two years, not just, ‘Let’s do an ad for a moment and have a production day together and call it at that.’”
Zevia, which was founded in 2007, was early to the better-for-you soda trend but in recent years has dealt with the rise of upstarts that are popular with Gen Z and millennials, including Poppi and Olipop. Net sales were up 21.2% year over year to $46.1 million for the quarterly period ended March 31, momentum executives partially attributed to reinvestments in marketing and changing up distribution strategy. Zevia in March also updated its packaging design as part of its modernization push.
