The vibrant sweatsuits emblazoned with Poppi’s logo have become central to the beverage brand’s influencer marketing approach. 

Poppi’s recent Coachella activation with TikTok mega-star Alix Earle exemplified this strategy. The brand designed custom neon green sweatsuits reading “Coachearlea” for Earle and her entourage to wear at the music festival. 

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Her posts showing off the “Casa Poppi” rental home generated 4.5 million engagements and 275 million total impressions for Poppi. However, the brand expects the sweatsuits gifted to Earle’s famous friends like Patrick Ta to pay additional dividends.

“Merch lives forever,” Sophia Sesto, Poppi’s Brand Awareness and Culture Director, told AdAge. “The impressions from the sweatsuits could be massive in the long run.”

Poppi first experimented with branded sweatsuits in early 2022, creating a cobalt blue set with neon green accents. “That opened our eyes to how sweatsuits allow us to integrate as a true lifestyle brand beyond the beverages,” Sesto explained for AdAge. 

By gifting fashion-forward athleisure wear to content creators, Poppi aims to integrate itself into influencers’ everyday lifestyles and wardrobes rather than relying solely on product promotion. As a “creator-first” company, Poppi recognized sweats provide an organic way to get featured in influencer content without awkwardly trying to work the drinks into videos.

Since then, Poppi has gifted hundreds of colorful sweatsuits to creators on Instagram and TikTok. This grounding of the brand in creators’ daily lives generates exposure through organic wear rather than overt product promotion posts. 

When Poppi launched its new pink sweats this month, recipients like Earle modeled the set in obligatory gifting videos before continuing to sport them in vlogs, clothing hauls, and other videos entirely unrelated to the brand’s drinks.

Earle rocked her Coachella sweats during an episode of her “Hot Mess” podcast, giving Poppi free impressions despite no promotion requirements. “While we can’t definitively tie sweatsuits to purchases, they clearly drive brand awareness,” Sesto noted. “We see constant Poppi mentions from fans inspired by creators wearing our merchandise.”

Around 90% of marketers believe product seeding elevates brand recognition based on a 2023 Traackr survey, with 75% saying it spurs some sales. Brands like Glossier and Chamberlain Coffee have found success seeding branded apparel over just products. However, the tactic isn’t foolproof – two-thirds of marketers said fewer than half of gifted creators actually featured those items.

Poppi has primarily avoided this pitfall, with creators consistently wearing eye-catching sweats on social media, fueling hype among consumers. “Our sweatsuits have transitioned from branded merch to bonafide fashion statements,” Sesto said. 

“People are simply living in our brand’s apparel because they genuinely love and want to wear it, not just for obligatory promotions.”