PepsiCo's $2bn Poppi buy, Nike's turnaround, Tesla protests and why women still face major barriers
Issue #48
Weekly Exhale
A few weeks ago, Olipop spat on Poppi's face with a post that fuelled outrage after Poppi over-gifted a bunch of social media influencers with branded vending machines. So much so that Poppi founder Allison Ellsworth seemed visibly distressed as she took to TikTok to post an apology. But this week, Ellsworth has nothing to apologise for—she just sold Poppi to PepsiCo for nearly $2 billion. Flashy stunts and Super Bowl spots are classic peacockery ahead of a sale, and this time, the fanfare paid off.
Let's be clear: Poppi aped Olipop, a strategy that's familiar to Pepsi, which copied Coca-Cola. But there's no getting around it: Poppi has pulled off a hell of a score (call it $1.6 billion after reported tax breaks). It's also a tidy win for Shark Tank star Rohan Oza, who paid $400,000 for 25% on the show. They're not the only winners. An early cluster of small investors, called The Angel Group, will see an 88x return on their investment. If you were an angel and put $5k into Poppi with The Angel Group, congratulations, you can now buy yourself a ski chalet in Mount Snow or a Lamborghini Aventador in neon puke green.
Prebiotic soda sales are miniature—0.28% of the market. No one wants sodas that have less sugar but taste worse. So why is PepsiCo so pumped to throw money at Poppi?
Brand people love to overstate their role, but yes, Poppi's iconoclastic pack design is cool, and there was some clever repositioning (see above copying Olipop from initially being called "Mothers's Beverage"). Social media fanatics love Poppi's commitment to influencers, even if showing off got them into trouble. Notably, the analysis shows that Gen Z women love Poppi over traditional sodas and Olipop. This may be down to Ellsworth, an influential female founder, who appeared on Shark Tank when she was 9 months pregnant.
Here's another clue: Despite his well-known Diet Coke addiction, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared war on sodas as part of his 'Make America Healthy Again' platform, calling them "poison". Coca-Cola launched its own prebiotic soda in February, called Simply Pop.
That's the thing. A brand's value is often more about the pain it removes for the acquirer than the product it sells. Keeping the U.S. Government off your back is an expensive game. Whether the pre-biotic soda category ultimately succeeds is immaterial. Pepsi just bought itself a get-out-of-jail-free card in case the soda market gets regulated or culturally ostracised.
That leaves Olipop in a funny place, which is now overvalued yet unable to take on the conglomerates. Fussing over Poppi's $25k vending machine was lousy juju.
I was excited to see what Spike Jonze and Pedro Pascal could do for AirPods in Apple's new five-minute brand spot. But it feels like Jonze and Pascal were forced to build the ad around a noise cancellation feature that couldn't make its mind up—a switch that goes on, then off, then on again—robbing the film of its emotional sweep. And while I wanted to fall in love with Pascal's dance moves, it's a far cry from Christopher Walken's surprise jive in that Fatboy Slim video.
Apple's creativity is bold but waning. And there's always a concern when a company goes all-in on advertising. It usually means creativity in the products has dried up. That said, if you're sitting on legacy products people already love—headphones, fried chicken, sneakers, fragrance, then cool ads can make you seem innovative. After all, it's easier to hire Jonze and Pascal than to pile capex into the risky process of producing the next billion-dollar product (and anything less isn't worth bothering with for a company the size of Apple).
Advertising agencies lost their grip when phone screens took over, but brands can still leverage big-moment cultural capital as an alternative to having a breakthrough product. Poppi's success shows that even a mediocre product with smart branding, social media dominance and a Super Bowl ad can score a billion-dollar exit.
And that's some much-needed sunshine for start-up consumer brands.
Despite getting lost, I liked the "walk on the sunny side of the street" invitation that Jonze and Pascal extended to us in their film. I spent a decent chunk of the week in London's sunshine, deliberately crossing to where the sun kissed the pavement, removing my cap to catch a little extra warmth.
There's a lesson in there.
My mother, a fierce entrepreneur and independent shop owner used to say to her team when things got rough, "Come on people—let's get a glow." And hey, people would perk up. Customers would buzz a little more. The tips that day would go up.
Not every founder will get an overvalued exit to a conglomerate or the chance to eye up Vitelli Boetia staircase chandeliers for their mansions when the payout lands. Unlike Olipop and Poppi, karma doesn't always come around. Succeeding requires a thousand external forces lining up in your favour. But you are pursuing something you know to be true in the warm embers of your gut and with the comfort that you're taking action. So the trick is to keep choosing the sunny side of the street. Don't be spitting like Olipop.
And if, like Pascal, you've lost something or someone close to you recently, then I wish you sunshine, too. The feeling of standing on a street corner, with a bit of warmth on your face, making plans to have good friends by your side. Who knows, being kind to someone who needs street directions to feel some respite. Or even dancing awkwardly down the street with a pair of old wired headphones providing the music.
That's what Apple was trying to say.
And for sure, they are some of the few returns we can count on.
Let's rise together with every issue.
Market Movements
UK borrowing overshoots expectations adding pressure | Financial Times
Bank of England holds interest rates | BBC
Tiny improvement in consumer confidence in March | The Independent
S&P on four week losing streak | CNBC
Brand Beat
PepsiCo buys prebiotic soda brand Poppi for nearly $2 billion | Forbes
Apple's new 5 minute spot by Spike Jonze featuring Pedro Pascal | Variety
Why don't Gen Z men like Poppi? | Unhinged Social
Nike's turnaround has begun | Quartz
McDonald's replaces Starbucks as most valuable restaurant | MarketingWeek
20 ways Nvidia's GTC could reshape marketing | The Drum
Is Topshop coming back? | Glamour
Why escapism is the new marketing currency | Vogue Business
Meet 15 companies that use marketing as cultural | Fast Company
As retail media booms, performance and brand blurs | Digiday
Is Klarna's $15bn valuation worth it? | Sifted
ASOS expects in-line revenue | Wall Street Journal
Why supersized marketing stunts are a thing | Emily Sundberg
Everden wants to be Gen Alpha's Bonne Bell | Fast Company
TikTokkers call for the "chubby filter" to be banned | BBC
The new rock stars of food are a tin of tuna and a jar of beans | The Telegraph
Yeo Valley acquires The Collective Dairy | Food Manufacture
Unilever to sell The Vegetarian Butcher to Vivera | The Grocer
Coca-Cola changes network for $700m media account | The Drum
Inside the controversies of the Snow White remake | New York Times
System1's ad of the week is for Dawn dish soap | System1
Trending: Brightland olive oils and fruit-forward vinegars | Thingtesting
Starting Up
Women UK founders in the UK face discrimination | Sifted
Tech Nation unveils 25 leading climate tech startups | Maddyness
Not a coder? Having an AI idea can be enough | New York Times
How AI agents are helping startups scale | Forbes
Michael Seibel is leaving Y Combinator | TechCrunch
Tech Tidbits
Accenture wants Elon Musk's spending is hitting revenues | Financial Times
Tesla Takedown organises 500 protests worldwide | Fast Company
Inside Google's Two-Year Frenzy to Catch Up with OpenAI | Wired
Sam Altman is investing in a for-profit college | Quartz
Disney's robotic droids steal show at NVIDIA conference | Wall Street Journal
Venture Vibes
What I learned over lunch with Warren Buffet | Big Think
Diageo loosens ties with Distill Ventures | Drinks Intel
Has VC killed more value than it's created? | Sifted
VC investments in Europe surpass $52 billion | TechCrunch
Design Driven
How eBay built a bridge between brand and product | Figma
Most innovative design companies of 2025 | Fast Company
Do design studios need physical spaces? | It's Nice That
Jacquemus designs loungewear for Air France | Perfect Magazine
Happiness
Feeling helpless and hopeless? Here's how to fight it | CNBC
Want a better life? Try these habits | Vox
Britain's rainforests are a place of healing | The Guardian
Stay gold 🙏🏻
I am so excited for Poppi! I wish the media would be more transparent about how long it really took them, however. There’s no shame in it being a 10 year exit, however, the media loves to tell these stories about how they went from Shark Tank to $2 billion in five years, which as we know, is only part of the story. ❤️