Star-Powered Drinks

The beverage industry is seeing explosive growth in celebrity-backed brands and viral beverage products

Key Drivers

The Star-Powered Drinks trend is being driven by consumers’ fascination with personal connection, storytelling, and aspirational lifestyles. Celebrities are capitalizing on this demand with healthy, functional, and indulgent offerings across soft and alcoholic categories. The success of products in the early 2020s, such as Prime, has highlighted the beverage industry as a fast-moving exciting place for investment.

This trend also intersects with viral phenomena like dirty soda, popularized through reality TV, underscoring how beverage innovation and cultural relevance drive consumption. Additionally, many celebrity brands emphasize sustainability—such as ethical sourcing or eco-conscious packaging—meeting consumer expectations for values-driven choices. This creates a dual appeal: indulgence paired with ethical responsibility.

like dirty soda, popularized through reality TV, underscoring how beverage innovation and cultural relevance drive consumption.

Additionally, many celebrity brands emphasize sustainability—such as ethical sourcing or eco-conscious packaging—meeting consumer expectations for
values-driven choices. This creates a
dual appeal: indulgence paired with
ethical responsibility.

How This Trend is Manifesting

01.

Celebrities and Influencers

Celebrities and influencers are entering the beverage industry through investments and partnerships.

For example, Emma Chamberlain’s RTD coffee ($2.3M in sales, Q2 2023, Nielsen 2024), Alex Cooper’s functional water launch ‘Unwell’, and Sabrina Carpenter’s Blank St espresso Limited Time Offer.

02.

Cultural
Relevance

Cultural Relevance and viral trends have become pivotal in shaping the beverage industry, as brands gain traction or leverage popular themes to connect with consumers and drive engagement. For example, featuring on Reality TV has seen Utah-based soda chain Swig’s popularity surge. Swig offers dirty sodas such as the seasonal ‘Alpine Avalanche’ containing Dr Pepper, toffee crunch, Almond Roca, caramel sauce and vanilla cream.

Fast-moving beverage brand owners have also tapped into this trend with retail products positioned for at-home DIY, for example CoffeeMate’s dirty soda coconut lime creamer.

Top Tips to Access This Trend

Incorporate tea, coffee, and botanicals, which are key ingredients in star-powered drinks, as celebrities and influencers aim to build functional, healthy, and sustainable brands.

Engage in active trend-spotting on fast-moving platforms such as TikTok to identify the latest viral beverage categories and ingredients – and then move fast to develop Limited Time Offers, seasonal products or exclusive launches.

Center product positioning around your brand’s values, as this trend highlights the importance of personal connections with consumers. Emphasizing your commitment to sustainability, wellness, or authenticity can strengthen emotional ties, making your products more meaningful and resonant in today’s market.

What’s Next?

As with all viral trends, excitement soon gives way to scrutiny as consumers seek to develop greater understanding of the products they’re consuming and engaging with. This spans across ingredient lists, sourcing credentials and brand values – particularly in increasingly polarized political and social environments. As trend cycles become faster and consumers are faced with increasing choice, it’s imperative that brands can leverage famous founders effectively, but also stand on their own credentials to ensure longevity.

As the space gets more saturated it will be important to combat fatigue by ensuring strong and relevant alignment between the brand and the celebrity. For example - Sabrina Carpenter promoting espresso would present an obvious connection, based on the title of her hit song, and her fun-yet-mature public image. Brands need to ensure that all A-list connections are equally as coherent to avoid confusion and disengagement from consumers.