Athletic Brewing raises $50M, KetoneIQ’s $100K advertising stunt, and Bandit Running launches new training app...
Here’s what we got this week in the business world of health, fitness, & wellness:
🗞️ The Story - Athletic Brewing raises $50M at an $800M valuation.
📈 The Strategy - KetoneIQ’s genius $100,000 advertising stunt.
🛍️ The Product - Bandit Running launches AI marathon training app.
Athletic Brewing raised $50M at an $800M valuation.
Making it the most valuable and largest non-alcoholic beer brand in the space, at a 19% market share.
And they are even the best selling beer at Whole Foods, despite not containing alcohol.
They plan to use this new investment to increase production through a recently purchased U.S. brewing facility and expansion of their retail presence.
Now, when people talk about the non-alcoholic beer market, it is often with optimism.
Which makes sense, as sales have grown 163% between 2019 and 2023.
But while non-alcoholic beer accounts for 31.2% of the global beer market, it only accounts for 5% of global beer revenues.
Our culture is extremely driven by social events and drinking.
And it’s hard for me to picture a world where non-alcoholic beer continues to steal global beer market share.
But that’s not actually the market I believe they are playing in…
I think there is an entirely new market that has been created recently.
Alternative Social Stimulants.
Drinks that are healthy in comparison to alcoholic drinks, still potentially provide some stimulation, and are viewed socially as “fun”.
This includes social tonics like cannabis drinks, mushroom drinks, nootropics, and non-alcoholic beer.
Names I keep seeing pop up are CANN, BRĒZ, Recess, Kin, Hiyo, and of course, Athletic Brewing.
Consumers still want to have fun in social settings, but are also much more health conscious these days.
Reaching for social tonic stimulants and ditching the hangover inducing stimulants.
It’s a fascinating space and gonna be cool to see where it goes.
This genius advertising stunt by Ketone-IQ got them $100,000 in free press.
So any big sporting event or televised event with a lot of viewership, is gonna cost a fortune to advertise on.
Michael Brandt, the CEO of Ketone-IQ, knew this.
And he also knew that as an entrepreneur trying to scale his Ketone energy shot company, he’d have to think outside the box.
So here’s the genius stunt he pulled:
It resulted in him getting on national TV, creating a viral moment, and garnering millions of views in the process.
This is what’s known as guerrilla marketing
Where you do something that is unconventional and low cost to gain exposure for your product.
Typically with the intent to go viral because of its uniqueness, wow factor, and share-ability.
And this Ketone-IQ suit stunt by Michael was perfect execution of guerrilla marketing.
Gotta just give him a round of applause, this was so good.
Bandit Running launched a new AI marathon training app.
And from the looks of it, might be the new app I send people when they ask how to train for a distance race.
I’m a fan of simplicity and getting to the point.
There’s no reason to overcomplicate things.
And that’s exactly what Bandit did with this app.
It’s very straightforward and here’s how it works:
The plan it gives you looks extremely easy to follow.
Along with the training plan, you get an AI coach, guidance from an expert throughout training, and exclusive product discounts.
The simplicity is what I love and here’s why:
To me, the barrier to entry for fitness events has always seemed quite high.
Because people just get overwhelmed by the amount of info that is out there.
And what they should be doing for training.
So they end up just never committing to a race.
And this app appears to really be lowering that barrier to entry because of the simplicity.
Bandit just doesn’t seem to miss, well done once again by them.
