How STARRY Became Culturally Unavoidable to Gen Z
- Social & Influencer
- Creative
- Audience Intelligence
- Alli
- New Product Launch
- Media Strategy & Investment
Turning a newly launched soda into a native part of Gen Z internet culture through an always-on creator ecosystem.
Challenge
Breaking Into a Category Sprite Had Ruled for Decades
When PepsiCo launched STARRY, it was stepping into one of the most unforgiving categories in beverage: lemon-lime soda, a space Coca-Cola's Sprite had ruled for decades with an estimated 65-70% of the U.S. market. STARRY was PepsiCo's reinvention after years of watching Sierra Mist fail to gain traction against that kind of entrenched dominance. This time the ambition was different: not another mass-market soda launch, but a challenger brand built from the ground up to win relevance with Gen Z through internet culture, creators, and humor rather than polished celebrity advertising.
Our mandate was to make a young brand feel native to the culture Gen Z already lives in, and to do it against competitors with decades of built-in familiarity.
Strategy
An Always-On Creator Ecosystem
Gen Z no longer discovers beverage brands through advertising. They find them through creators, memes, niche communities, and the chaotic, entertaining content that earns a place on the TikTok For You Page. Overly polished branded spots get scrolled past; culturally fluent, creator-native content gets shared.
That led to our strategic unlock. Rather than betting on one big hero campaign, we built an always-on creator ecosystem designed to insert STARRY into Gen Z culture continuously and in real time. We also recognized that cultural relevance for this audience is not one-size-fits-all. Different communities respond to different humor, aesthetics, and creators, so we planned to scale across many corners of the internet at once, partnering with creators spanning comedy, food, lifestyle, gaming, and multicultural communities.
The big idea tying it all together: make creator-led cultural moments unavoidable, with STARRY feeling less like advertising and more like part of internet culture.
Execution
Flooding the For You Page
We brought the “STARRY Hits Different” strategy to life as a continuous stream of creator content rather than occasional tentpoles. Our team partnered with 205 micro, mid-tier, and macro creators across comedy, food, lifestyle, gaming, family, nostalgic storytelling, and multicultural communities, a deliberately broad mix that kept STARRY visible across the TikTok ecosystem simultaneously.
Creators were selected for cultural relevance, audience affinity, humor style, and authenticity, then empowered to fold STARRY into their own formats rather than perform to a rigid script. That trust is what kept the content feeling organic instead of interruptive. Seasonal moments laddered into the same always-on system: the Cranberry Blizz holiday campaign leaned into nostalgic family dynamics and Gen Z holiday humor to position the limited-edition flavor as part of modern holiday culture, working with creators including @aaashleyk, @faithsfresh, and @hoemgirl.
Throughout, we refined direction using audience sentiment analysis, social listening, creator performance data, and Reddit and TikTok trend monitoring, informed by our proprietary technology. That agility let us react to cultural shifts quickly and keep optimizing partnerships and storytelling styles as the year unfolded.
Impact
Cultural Resonance That Translated Commercially
250
Creator Content Pieces
Our always-on model delivered scale and cultural resonance well beyond expectations. In the first year of our partnership, “STARRY Hits Different” generated more than 187.5 million blended impressions across 250 pieces of creator content, with a 7.79% TikTok engagement rate as creator-led content consistently outperformed traditional branded social. Just as important for a challenger brand, STARRY saw a 6% awareness uplift and 5% brand preference uplift among Gen Z versus the U.S. general population, evidence that the work was shifting perception, not just racking up views.
That cultural traction translated commercially: STARRY blew past revenue expectations in retail and foodservice sales and captured 5.3% market share in its first year. The Cranberry Blizz holiday moment validated the model in miniature, driving 55.2 million total impressions (6.3M+ organic) and 92% positive sentiment. Taken together, our team proved that a creator-led social ecosystem can build awareness, preference, and genuine brand love at scale for a challenger competing against legacy leaders, turning STARRY from a new product launch into a recognizable part of internet culture itself.
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