How to build a beverage brand: Celsius takes better-for-you energy to mass market success

Celsius dates back to 2004, but over the last few years it’s hit the big time: $300m in sales in 2021, $653m in 2022, then becoming a billion dollar brand with $1.3bn in 2023. Building on its better-for-you positioning, the brand is now focused on its ‘Live Fit’ tagline: one that’s helped attract 761k followers on Instagram.

In 2022, PepsiCo made a $550m investment into the brand, eying up a shared opportunity to drive growth and innovation in the sector: taking an 8.5% ownership share in the company and setting up a long-term strategic distribution agreement.

2025 got off to a powerful start with the acquisition of Alani Nu; another focus this year will be international expansion.

So what’s transformed Celsius from a niche brand to the #3 energy drink in the US? Kyle Watson, CMO, sits down with BeverageDaily and talks through the brand’s strategy.

BD: Introduce us to Celsius!

KW: Celsius is a lifestyle, better-for-you, beverage brand in the energy space that really has been a pioneer in the space. Born in 2004, the brand has evolved so much since then, so we’re now we’re sitting at #3 as an energy drink brand in the US and we’re really born in fitness and launched in vitamin specialties, which is very unique in the category.

But the brand’s really about essential energy to help people live fit and achieve their goals. And it’s really living fit in everything you do, not just in the gym, it’s living fit in every aspect of life.

Who’s your target market?

It’s what you would think when you think about who the energy drink consumer is.

So we do see a lot of Gen Z going into the category: as you’re getting into your stage of life where you’re in college, you have a lot to do, you’re playing sports, you have a lot to accomplish. So it’s really critical to make sure that we’re meeting people as they enter into the category.

But a big piece of our consumer segment is also millennials. We see a lot of even older millennials that are kind of ageing out of energy drinks, but still want that better-for-you option for their energy, with our essential vitamins, our premium ingredients and zero sugar.

Celsius was launched in 2004: but it wasn’t until around 2020 that it started to gather serious momentum. What propelled Celsius into the big leagues?

I’ve been with Celsius for nearly six years, but there was a lot that happened before I got to this brand that really transitioned Celsius from being this more niche kind of fitness focused brand that really grew up in vitamin specialty.

Initially Celsius was launched as a zero calorie fat burning drink - almost positioned like a like kind of Weight Watchers - in in a way that like spoke more to weight loss. I think a really big moment was when, several years ago, the brand really transitioned from speaking about weight loss to more this ‘live fit’ lifestyle brand, this premium positioning and taking it away from being too into the weight loss side. I think that that was a really interesting and beneficial transition.

And then the premium packaging. Cleaning up some of the verbiage on the can - if you look back to 2004 when the brand was launched, there was a lot more going on on the packaging. I think that the simplification going more towards that clean looking white and the bright fruit really was a big turning point.

Another big turning point for the brand was around COVID when we were able to really amplify our efforts around digital, e-com and really drive our brand on Amazon.

We weren’t able to activate at events, field teams, a lot of the things we had traditionally invested in. But while we didn’t have the same level of distribution that a lot of brands had, we were really able to hone in on driving that awareness and trial on Amazon specifically.

Take us through the key points of your marketing strategy

It definitely has been very valuable for us to align ourselves with the right communities and doing that through channels on social media.

If you look at kind of one of the things that we prioritize, it’s similar to what you see brands like lululemon doing, where they’re really speaking to these communities that are all relevant for their brand.

They had brand ambassadors all over the country that they would supply with lululemon gear and basically use their brand as a currency, and that’s something we’ve done as well.

We have really prioritized building these communities around people that live fit. So it’s on social: we have 3,000 dedicated brand ambassadors that we’re not paying, but basically using our brand. We’re sending them product, we’re sending them branded apparel: whether they’re teaching yoga classes or they’re out in the communities of whatever sport they’re playing or whatever they may be into that really drives that ‘live fit’ lifestyle and community has been big for us.

I think the other piece is who we partner with. We have a lot of athlete partners, we have a lot of ambassadors that are those aspirational figures that all our consumers really look up to.

But additionally, I think it’s really just making sure we’re meeting people where they live, work and play. I think that’s something that’s key. We do prioritize driving trial because we have an exceptional refreshing fruit forward beverage and flavor profile. So I think it helps to make sure that we’re showing up and really driving trial where people are able to see the benefit but also able to taste how good our beverage tastes – in a category that hasn’t always traditionally been extremely refreshing.

What’s been your secret to success in marketing Celsius?

I think the biggest thing that I’ve seen is really creating an emotional connection with your consumers.

In everything you do, you have to strive to build that emotional connection in some way, whether you’re activating at certain events that are emotionally connected to people and your activation’s bringing that connectivity to something nostalgic, or something they’ll remember, or a moment in their life they’ll always look back to.Having a conversation with people in those moments is really important as a brand. And making sure you’re aligning with something that means more than just what they’re what they’re consuming. And that’s really where we strive to show up from a brand perspective.

The energy drink category is heating up. What’s going to be the key to standing out?

One thing we’ve seen recently is many brands in the category leaning more towards this better-for-you positioning. So there’s a lot more line extensions into zero sugar, so that’s becoming less of a differentiator for our brand. Everybody’s really leaning into being better for you and making sure they’re meeting consumers in this space.

But I think what is also really important is listening to consumers and understanding the different trends that come along with energy: whether it’s additional functionality, flavor profiles – I think innovation around flavor profiles and on-trend flavors is also really important.

But we also see that people want something different, and they want something aligned with macro trends as well. Last year, we launched our Space Vibe trilogy: Space was everywhere and it was this something that people really felt kind of they didn’t want to miss out on and it became something that was more of a cultural moment versus just a flavor.

I think that that’s where the big opportunity is for the category is: really continuing to align with macro trends and flavors and functionality. The category has gone to a place where the better-for-you focus is going to become old news. It needs to be more than that.

Celsius’ success, to date, has been all about the US. How are you going to expand this internationally?

This is really exciting. One of the things that’s always a challenge is growing a global brand and maintaining consistency where it’s really meaningful. Overall, I think we’ve been really successful in being able to take this brand and build it in the same way we did in the US.

We’ve taken our ‘live fit’ mantra to all our new markets. We’ve aligned with everything around fitness, better-for-you people living fit in every moment. We’ve focused on launching with this fitness tie-in – the things we did in the beginning here in the US – it’s important to come into the market with things that scream how we’re differentiated to other energy drinks.

We started our expansion with Canada; we have launched in the UK, in Australia and France. And we’ve seen a lot of success so far in those markets. It’s really exciting, to see that the brand already had some built-in equity in some of these markets that we weren’t even expecting.But we’re continuing to build that. I think Australia is an exciting one – we’ve seen a lot of the psychographics of the consumers in Australia are very much aligned with our brand.

What’s your top tip to other beverage brand builders?

One of the most important things is simply really knowing your brand and having your entire organisation and everybody that’s part of your brand really, truly understand it.

Sometimes that becomes a bigger challenge than you think, because people like to people have their own thoughts about brands and how it resonates with them. But I think if everyone all internally understands your brand, it makes it a lot easier to make sure that you’re all speaking the same language and that really know your brand when it comes to how the brand interacts with consumers, how it interacts with partnerships and other opportunities.

I think a lot of brands try to be everything to everyone because they want to attract a large mainstream audience. And I think you have to be so careful in doing that - no matter what your brand is - because if you are everything to everyone, you become nothing.

You have to be careful: you obviously want to drive as much awareness as possible, but you also want to make sure you’re creating a brand that stands for something.

What’s the favorite part of your job as CMO?

I absolutely love my job and so many parts of it. I really, really love being able to brainstorm with the team on really out-of-the-box creative concepts - how do we fit our brand into cultural moments? How can get we get creative with this innovation campaign? I love the creative side of it.

So I think the short answer would be anything that allows me to be creative and work with a team, being creative.

How do you start and end your working day?

To start my day, I love to go outside and get sun. I just want to get out, walk my dog. Animal energy is great.

At the end of the day, I try not to stay in the office too late, I get home and usually try to go for a run and again, get outside, go for a bike ride sometimes. I love it during the times when the sunlight stays out a little longer.