Emerging Functional Beverage Company
From formula to market: identifying opportunities for market differentiation to craft a healthy beverage brand
Practice:
Market Research Analysis
Ideation Facilitation
Brand Concepting
How might we cut through the noise in the beverage aisle?
The beverage market has exploded in recent years, with entirely new categories of canned and bottled beverages emerging—all of which are seeing consistent growth. The functional beverage market grew to $142.8B last year and hype new N/A brands, like Ghia, pop up overnight and have achieved serious market share in their first year of business (Ghia’s first year of revenue: $2.5M). The beverage aisle seems to have grown into a sea of gradient adorned cans that make health benefit claims of all kinds.
Context
After launching on Instagram, Ghia hit $2.5M of revenue in it’s first year.
Faced with an overflowing market of hyped CPG brands, health promoting beverages and N/A spirits—our challenge was to create a distinct brand essence for a new calming beverage company. But how do we position it? As an alcohol alternative? As a healthy soda? As a functional wellness drink? I set out to uncover ways to craft a brand position that not only stands out visually but also resonates deeply with health-conscious consumers, cutting through the clutter with authenticity and appeal.
The Challenge
Market Scan & Analysis
I started out by conducting a rigorous scan of online sources, including trend reports, consumer behavior studies and user-submitted product reviews with a focus on the functional and non-alcoholic segments.
This exploration revealed key trends: consumers are not willing to compromise on flavor, the high demand for natural ingredient lists, the rising appeal of luxury wellness products, and the emergence of the informed consumer—who views their drink choice as an extension of their personal brand.
Leveraging a creative matrix, we systematically explored and combined elements rooted in our findings across two main axes: values and components. This enabled us to generate a wide array of idea fragments, such as brand attributes and marketing campaign tactics. These fragments served as foundational elements for developing brand identities that resonate distinctly with market trends and consumer preferences.
Creative Matrix
We went through several rounds of mixing matching and combining idea fragments to build loose ideas of a brand concept. We then refined those initial concepts into more robust ones—crafted to reflect the market insights and consumer trends we had identified, ensuring they not only resonate with the target audience(s) but also stand out in the competitive landscape.
Brand Concepts
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