Essentia is the #1 ionized alkaline water brand. Yet amongst the current cultural obsession with hydration, people don’t actually see water as essential to daily performance. In fact, 75% of Americans are unaware they’re actually chronically dehydrated. That’s a huge mass unknowingly operating at a deficit everyday, impacting their body, mind, mood, and performance. While many are setting themselves up to fail, supercharged hydration can set them up to succeed. So, to launch Essentia’s new performance water, Hydroboost, we created the social-first campaign ‘Hold My Hydroboost’ and enlisted six-time NBA all-star Jimmy Butler for a supercharged game of H.O.R.S.E. on a Horse, of course.
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Directed by Zach Math, the film unleashes Jimmy’s bombastic self as he pulls up to a local pickup court on horseback, throws down a challenge, and quite literally proceeds to put the ‘buck’ into Jimmy Buckets. What follows is hoop shooting horseplay from the NBA’s most interesting man, all to introduce the benefits of supercharged hydration to the masses.
The campaign flipped the common ‘Hold My Beer’ phrase to put the new product name out into culture in a repeatable way. In this instance, the drink isn’t synonymous with disaster or a precursor to an epic fail, it’s the catalyst for an iconic win. Positioning the performance water as the boost to bring you back to your best and help you achieve something impressive, remarkable or rewarding—then challenge other Hydroboost drinkers to do the same.
Often lauded for his ‘side quests’ during the regular NBA season, images of Jimmy cruising the Miami streets on horseback were pre-seeded on Reddit and online forums as if it were yet another iconic act from the NBA star. Almost instantly, the Internet was in a frenzy as speculation and intrigue around Jimmy’s latest off-court antic got the world talking.
The image of the Heat guard donning a cowboy hat, riding his horse through the streets of Miami spread like wildfire. Appearing on popular basketball forums, as memes on Tik Tok, on evening ESPN roundups, articles in The New Yorker and even finding its way onto fan made t-shirts. And when the media had no more words, we gave them even more to talk about, revealing the full context with the release of Jimmy’s H.O.R.S.E on a horse showdown film.
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Next, the social campaign harnessed the influence of celebrities eager to prove themselves, using their channels to continue to drive mass awareness. Among them were pop superstar Tate McRae, preparing to embark on her first world tour, and teen actor-turned-athlete Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton, who wanted to cement his place in boxing following a lackluster professional debut.
Ahead of Tate’s first world tour, we tapped the singer-songwriter and dance sensation for a supercharged spin on a #GRWM that went beyond the typical vanity. What began as a usual bedroom update from the pop star turned into a behind the scenes look at what it takes to get ‘world tour ready’.
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Directed by Aerin Moreno and choreographed by Sean Bankhead, the film explored how social media has developed a new level of intimacy between artists and their fanbases. Followers now get a firsthand look at an artist's process like never before and the #GRWM trend is the apex of that phenomenon. The film supercharged that format for Tate’s savvy Tik Tok fan base, transforming what felt like a typical update into a fanciful, first glimpse of Tate’s world tour warm-up with never before seen choreography to her hit track hurt my feelings.
Creators in sport, gaming, fitness, art and fashion then joined in as we sent personalized unboxing kits with a simple warning: package contains supercharged hydration. Each kit invited them to take a sip and step up to a challenge of their own. The resulting #HoldMyHydroboost content continued to drive awareness of the new product name. Encouraging more people to show up and show off and create a ripple effect in hard to miss social spaces and verticals.
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By inviting people to step up to the challenge the campaign created an experience. One that’s participatory and built to be shared and co-created by those who aren’t afraid to pursue the things that excite, reward or recharge them.
Instead of people turning to false prophets like coffee or energy drinks for a quick ‘boost’, we exaggerated the benefits of Hydroboost to help people see intentional hydration as the performance enhancing tool it really is. And the results showed. The celebrity-studded social campaign garnered 1.1 billion impressions in just 45 days, 41 million TikTok views in only 24 hrs and led to a 76% increase in positive brand sentiment and 19% increase in cultural relevance. All this to shake people out of their state of chronic dehydration and prove that new supercharged hydration really can set them up for success.