Boosting Beverage Brand Campaigns: Why Digital Isn’t Always the Answer

Packed with electrolytes and hydration benefits, Vita Coco’s coconut water is an incredible hangover cure. Recognizing that hungover consumers often prefer not to leave the house, Vita Coco decided to partner with emerging food and grocery delivery apps as part of its hyper-targeted retail media strategy. Enter The Hangover Shop, a curated selection of Vita Coco’s coconut water, snacks, and over-the-counter remedies like ibuprofen—the perfect recipe for “day after” relief. With hungover customers generally homebound, shoppers could now type “The Hangover Shop” in their preferred delivery app to have relief delivered to their door in minutes. 

Criterion Global was tapped to hype the Hangover Shop in support of Vita Coco’s broader retail media efforts. But time was of the essence – Vita Coco had a tight deadline to make the most of summertime party season when temperatures – and afterparty hangovers – reached a head pounding high.

At the start, Vita Coco was inclined to use an all-digital strategy. But with our extensive cross-campaign insights, Criterion Global saw hidden value in other formats… especially with OOH. After an extensive planning process, Vita Coco trusted us to maximize the campaign’s value by using cross channel media, taking their strategy beyond a digital-only approach.

While digital offers precise targeting and measurability, traditional media offers unmatched reach, making it particularly ideal for products with broad appeal and frequent consumption… like beverages. There’s a realness, legitimacy, and scale with traditional media channels like TV, OOH, and even radio that digital banners just can’t match.

For CPG beverage brands like Vita Coco looking to target a mass consumer audience, the traditional layering of geo and demo targeting on-top of digital impressions can actually be quite limiting. By contrast, traditional media, especially TV, radio, and OOH, can offer better cost-efficiency at scale. With millions of consumers across demographics in the market for beverages, broad-reach tactics would save Vita Coco from overpaying for granular segmentation.

For CPG or beverage marketing, broad reach often drives more value from every advertising dollar, without sacrificing visibility, and a study in why marketers need to look to incorporate media beyond digital platforms.

Vita Coco’s in house marketing team wanted to go all-digital in its initial plans, but after zeroing-in on our audience and their whereabouts, Criterion Global brought something completely different to the table – an eye for efficiency..

Initial projections estimated a total campaign impression count of 600,000 hours of total view time, which is significant. 

But through adjustments to the media strategy, Criterion Global was able to increase total viewing time to 31,407,527 hours – an increase of +52x, with 26.8% less total investment than the client anticipated. 

How? 

Our counter-proposal media program introduced a blended strategy, with 85% static OOH ads and 15% Digital Out Of Home (DOOH), specifically focusing on high-impact subway placements: 

• In-Car Subway Posters: Reaching ⅓ of the NYC subway system
• On-Platform 2-Sheet Posters: Targeting high-traffic Manhattan stations, adjacent to neighborhoods with a high bar-to-person ratio
• Link NYC Street-Level Digital Live Boards: Providing visibility at strategic street-level locations

Our skilled media team additionally negotiated several add-ons that weren’t initially planned, but ultimately had significant impact on the overall campaign results:

• Digital Subway Live Boards on key platforms: a bonus 150 digital screens were negotiated with the MTA.
• Screen Placements in Subway Stations: achieved by launching the campaign one week early to secure added exposure

After winning the client’s support for the recalibrated plan, we secured media and were impressed with both the results and the campaign longevity. In the NY market alone, the campaign ad:

Impressions and View Time Skyrocketing

The campaign achieved +4.67% more impressions than estimated. 

CPM Improvement

With strategic screen ad placements in high-traffic subway stations, Criterion Global delivered a CPM that was +30% more efficient than initially projected. This approach not only enhanced Vita Coco’s overall brand presence but also reduced topline investment by 26.8%, keeping the campaign spend well within budget while still maximizing market impact.

The Power of Strategic Overrides

By tactically placing static OOH ads in locations with month-to-month overlap, Criterion Global secured an additional 6.7 million post-flight impressions. The campaign’s focus on static placements—making up 86% of the media mix—outperformed digital taxi tops, benefiting from extended visibility through campaign overrides and maximizing Vita Coco’s reach well beyond the initial flight period.

Negotiating Added Value

Additionally, in negotiating an additional 150 Subway Digital Live Boards from the MTA, we amplified the campaign’s reach by a further +18.4 million impressions out of almost 150M. High-traffic exposure in key subway stations added substantial value to the campaign, and ultimately boosted Vita Coco’s visibility in one of NYC’s busiest transit environments – particularly for those heading back from an evening of summer parties – facing down a hangover in the morning to come.

Criterion Global’s smart strategy underscored the value of blending OOH formats, proving that static placements can yield more extended and impactful impressions than digital alone, especially in the CPG beverage industry. And the client’s trust empowered Criterion Global to deliver significant added value and cost efficiencies. Our work with Vita Coco and it’s delivery partners demonstrates how strategic beverage marketing can drive impressive results, by leveraging traditional media in innovative ways and challenging the assumption that digital is inherently more efficient.