What Can We Learn From Prime Hydration?
If you are on social media or have children under 16, you’ve probably heard of Prime Hydration and its creators KSI & Logan Paul. The drink has been hyped up by the two content creators to increase demand and is now being sold for 10 times its retail price.
The hype around Prime has even popularized an off-licence “Wakey-wines” in Wakefield, West Yorkshire which gained more than 500,000 followers on TikTok by claiming to sell Prime drinks for £100 each. But what can marketers learn from Prime and what do we predict their future?
What is Prime Hydration?
Prime Hydration is a sports energy drink that is a “naturally flavoured” beverage containing 10% coconut water, antioxidants and electrolytes. It was created by YouTube sensations Logan Paul & KSI, who have successfully sent their products viral. Between the two influencers, they have 70 million YouTube subscribers combined and the official prime account has 1.2 million which gives them a huge audience of potential customers itching to get their hands on a bottle.
Prime Hydration was originally sold through Asda; however, Prime is now exclusive to Aldi and some Spar branches. Shoppers are queuing from 6 am for hours to get their hands on the drink with Aldi having restrictions on how many bottles each customer can buy.
Why has it gone Viral?
Prime is a perfect example of how marketing and creativity can work. However, it doesn’t happen overnight the duo has been building their digital brands for over 10+ years. The use a mixture of the marketing mix to effectively target their target audience. Some of their methods to generate a demand are:
The Use of their Social Media Audience
Instead of a product and brand attaching itself to influencers, Prime Hydration has done the opposite, the YouTube duo grew their audience across multiple channels meaning the product had an already existing customer base ready and waiting. The duo cleverly used their own social media channels to create a real buzz around the drink with one social media post generating 1.1 million likes.
The Prime duo understood their audience and used them as their target audience (under 25 or even 16) to generate massive demand. Even in their product packaging, you can see they are targeting the younger audience with their bright use of colours. The use of vibrant colours develops a club-like feel for the brand, as kids and teens are swapping flavours so they can try them all. Dr Ceyda Paydas Turan states younger consumers prefer limited products because it makes them feel “special” and further adds to the YouTubers fans having a strong sense of community.
Fear of Missing Out
As the YouTube duo has such a large following and only sells to Aldi, they can drip-feed their supply to keep demand high. KSI & Logan Paul have expertly built up the hype, which leaves fans intrigued and creates a bigger demand.
User-generated content has also helped increase the demand for the hydration drink as social media has been rife with shoppers fighting over the water and one specific video has resulted in over nine million views on TikTok.
Many experts in marketing believe the social media founders have deliberately restricted their supply to create and continue the buzz. However, KSI has denied this in podcasts and on Twitter.
As demand grew, cunning retailers (like Wakey Wines) took advantage of the limited access and spiked prices which helped fuel the hype of Prime.
Due to the target audience being so impressionable with their friends, the fear of missing out on the big trend has supported the ever-growing hype.
Use of Sponsorships
Around six months ago, Prime Hydration partnered with Arsenal FC which will help the brand massively for its credibility out with its key target audience as it’ll now be identified as a genuine hydration product and not just an influencer project. This is a smart move for both parties – it provides “clout” for Arsenal as they are associated with two of the biggest creators and it provides Prime Hydration with another cult following with Arsenal’s loyal supporters. Another clever part of the sponsorship that builds a cult community is Arsenal supporters will be able to purchase Prime at home games which give them exclusivity and builds a relationship with the brand.
Late last week, the Prime duo announced they are now proud sponsors of the UFC, which is a completely different demographic from Gen Z. Prime are now the official "Global Sports Drinks of the UFC" which will feature new octagon branding which will allow Prime to reach 900 million households across 175 countries. This will give Prime the opportunity to tap into the UFCs loyal followers and increase their brand awareness.
You can read the UFC's official statement here
Marketing Stunts & Product Placement
Although we haven’t seen many reviews on the taste of the product, the YouTube duo has perfectly used their status to promote the brand and keep the hype fire burning. A year ago, shortly after their USA launch, Logan Paul appeared on WWE walking out into the ring with a bottle of Prime which was instantly picked up on social media. The stunt reportedly resulted in 740 searches of “Prime Logan Paul” per hour, #LoganPaul trending on Twitter and over 1.3 million people seeing his entrance into WWE. This is a genius move from Paul as the wrestling fanbase would align with Primes.
Another genius marketing move by the pair was when the duo created content going “undercover” in Walmart to try to generate interest from the general public. The YouTube video showcased the personality of the duo and generated mass interest with over 9.1 million views.
It’s been even rumoured that Prime will have a Superbowl ad. This is massive for the brand as ad spots for the Superbowl are usually dominated by huge conglomerates and Statista averaged the cost of a 30-second ad costing $6.5 million which shows the brand wants to continue to grow.
What’s next for Prime?
With Prime now selling successfully in the States & the UK, you can predict it’ll be another big year for the brand. It would make sense for the duo to open the brand up to another larger market, however, whether it’s a drip-selling method or a supply struggle you can see Prime maximising their already existing markets before opening to other countries. In 2022, Prime sold more than 110 million and generated nearly $200 million in the US market alone, you can presume they’ll easily break into the top 5 largest sports drinks and double their sales.
It will be interesting to see what the brand does next; with their large loyal followers of KSI & Paul the brand doesn’t look like going anywhere. We believe they’ll continue to drip-feed the market and introduce a wider range of products whilst using their YouTube channels to do outlandish marketing activity that involves the duo.
The Prime drink shows marketing teams the importance of social media presence and influence on the younger demographics. However, do you think this is a one off brand due to the fame of the two creators or do you think other YouTube sensations could recreate this sales phenomenon? Let us know your thoughts!
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