When PepsiCo acquired Poppi for a reported $1.95 billion, the headlines focused on the exploding functional soda category, the brand’s massive retail footprint, and its TikTok dominance. But let’s be clear: This deal was about more than bubbles and gut health. This was a design-led acquisition.
Poppi didn’t just create another functional soda, it built a brand that felt genuinely new. Bright, punchy, optimistic. A master class in relevance. In a category packed with earnest health claims and bland wellness tropes, Poppi cut through with a visual identity that popped (pun intended), a brand voice that radiated personality, and a founder story that felt as real as it gets.
From a branding and strategy lens, it’s a case study in how to take a challenger brand from cult darling to acquisition target. And while everyone wants to talk about margins and market share, the real story here is how Poppi used brand to drive business.
From Mother to movement
What’s easy to forget now is that Poppi didn’t start with a billion-dollar brand. It launched as Mother—a perfectly fine name with a muted, earthy aesthetic you might expect from a kombucha brand circa 2015. But the founders had the presence of mind—and humility—to pivot. To ditch what wasn’t working and build something that could.
That’s lesson one: You’re always in beta. The best brands, large or small, stay agile. They evolve based on how consumers actually respond, not how they hoped they would.
Poppi’s early rebrand wasn’t cosmetic—it was strategic. It unlocked scale, memorability, and a radically broader audience.
Building desire, not just demand
Poppi didn’t just look good, it felt good. It made gut health fun. It spoke to Gen Z in a way that felt native, not try-hard. Its social strategy was unfiltered, founder-forward, and meme-aware. And that tone—fun, confident, a little rebellious—matched the packaging perfectly.
Lesson two: Commit to your audience. Too many brands try to be everything to everyone and wind up fading into the background. Poppi didn’t. It knew who it was for, and it showed up in full color, every time.
Scaled simplicity
The irony of “disruptor” brands is that many are too complicated to scale. Complex ingredient lists. Over-designed packaging. Hyper-niche positioning. Poppi avoided all of that.