From Hype to Billions: How Influencer Marketing Hacked the Beverage Industry (and What’s Next for Prime Hydration)

The Fastest Selling Beverage of all time?

Sixteen bottles every single second. That’s how much Logan Paul and KSI have managed to sell over the last two years. That’s a total of 1 billion bottles. Prime is officially the fastest selling beverage of all time.

Looking at the hype, you might think that Prime Hydration is the new Apple. In reality, it’s a brightly colored drink with an equally bright taste. “It tastes like perfume.” About as quickly as it arrives on the shelf, it sells out. It has become so hard to find Prime that there are entire TikTok accounts dedicated to tracking bottles. A limited supply and high demand mean one thing: an expensive resale market. Some bottles have been auctioned for several thousand dollars. In schools, kids keep empty bottles filled with water to gain social status.

Prime Hydration is one of the biggest success stories of recent years. Most of the praise has been given to the two YouTubers that face the brand. Logan Paul and KSI have created moments of marketing magic to sell Prime. Look beyond the bold packaging and star names, and a very different picture appears. A story full of controversies, carefully manipulated by a secretive company. A strategy that aims to change the way we shop forever, and they are using Erling Haaland to do it.

Today, I will tell you about the secret strategy that turned Prime Hydration into the fastest selling drinks company of all time.

The Rise of Prime Hydration

Prime Hydration can trace its roots back to the 1800s, when a small-town scientist discovered… Sorry – our mistake. There are no business trips to Thailand or cocaine in this story… at least not when we are talking about the drink. Prime Hydration was born in 2022.

Logan Paul and KSI were two YouTubers locked in a fierce boxing rivalry. Their first meeting ended in a draw. The second was a controversial KSI win. When the duo appeared on an Instagram live, everyone assumed that it would be to announce round three. But they announced a partnership selling hydration drinks. This was a classic bait and switch. Logan Paul and KSI played on their feud to draw people in and then joined forces to capitalize on the attention.

Their goal: to replace Gatorade as the biggest hydration drink in the world. Two fierce rivals joining forces to take down a common enemy—that’s masterful storytelling. The deception was quickly forgotten, and millions of followers were hooked.

The launch was followed by similar moments of magic. In one viral video, a wild monkey takes a bottle of Prime from Paul’s bag before running away. Some claim it was a set-up, but Paul denies it. “I did not set it up,” but “the moment he took the Prime out of the bag, I knew this was gonna be the best video on the f***ing planet.” Viral videos were a useful tool for Prime in the early days, but selling 1 billion bottles takes something else.

Scarcity Marketing

When Prime arrived in the U.K., hype reached a whole new level. Instead of making the drink widely available across major supermarkets, Prime gave smaller amounts to select brands. When this scarcity met the hype, it created mania. People started queuing for hours to get their hands on the latest flavors. Most shops sold out within 30 minutes of opening. It was a classic example of scarcity marketing.

Social media was flooded with people documenting their desperate searches for Prime. Traditional media noticed and began to report tales of overpriced Prime and crazy kids. This created a virtuous cycle where attention created demand, which in turn created more attention, and so on.

The second phase of Prime’s rise came when parents started to notice what their children were drinking. Some became concerned with artificial ingredients. Others were annoyed at being pressured into buying expensive drinks.

Carrying a bottle of Prime meant that you were either incredibly lucky or rich enough to buy on the inflated resale market. Schools even banned Prime from campus. They argued that the drink was a distraction, with some kids feeling pressured to spend money on Prime to be accepted. The prohibition only made Prime more attractive to rebellious teenagers.

This is similar to how Red Bull got started, targeting young people at nightclubs and universities while the media generated even more attention through explosive headlines about health concerns. Looking back, this may seem like a smart strategy. But Prime insists that the scarcity was actually due to production errors.

So it was luck. Whatever the truth, something tastes weird. We are not just saying that because we tasted Prime while researching this video. The expert way that Prime has navigated in these early days suggests a larger plan and a bigger team behind the scenes.

Who Owns Prime?

Or to put it in a more dramatic sentence, who is pulling the strings at Prime? To answer that, you need to look at the back of the bottle. Here you will find an address in Louisville, Kentucky. Search this address and you will find a manufacturer number.

Meet Max Clemons and Trey Steiger, co-owners of Congo Brands. They are the real owners of Prime. Their names are everywhere on the official documents. While Logan Paul and KSI have a significant interest in Prime, these two own the majority. A look at their website suggests that it was Congo’s idea to bring Logan Paul and KSI together in the first place.

Congo Brands calls itself a “full-service product development hub.” That’s just a fancy way of saying they do everything, from idea and design to marketing and sales. This isn’t the first time that Congo Brands has tried the same strategy. In 2018, Congo partnered with fitness influencer Katy Hearn to create Alani Nu, a line of energy drinks and fitness snacks. Hearn became the face of the brand and advertised it across social media.

Alani Nu is one of the fastest growing in the fitness supplement market, with more than $200 million in sales within the first year. This comes from just $9,000 spent on traditional advertising. Its biggest competitor spent $23 million. That sounds like a familiar story.

What Congo Brands is doing is the next evolution of influencer marketing. Companies normally hire influencers to sell their products. Now, influencers are creating their own brands and doing the sales themselves. That’s why The Rock has a tequila, Deadpool has a gin company, and Federer has some shoes. The benefits of this approach are lower ad spend and a more authentic brand image.

How To Beat Red Bull and Gatorade

But there is another hidden benefit, one that hints at the future of Prime Hydration. The rapid rise of brands like Prime Hydration, Alani Nu, and even Aviation Gin was only possible thanks to the instant exposure their celebrity owners attract. These brands gain instant market share. Their competitors have two options: watch as their share is eroded or buy out the loud marketing machine before it does too much damage. Most go for option two.

Aviation Gin was sold to drinks giant Diageo for more than 600 million dollars. Congo is reportedly considering a partial sale of Alani Nu for a valuation of $3 billion. As Gatorade watches its sales decline and Prime reach new heights, it may be tempted to send in an offer.

The influencer-led approach may look impressive, but the headlines hide a deeper reality. Viral videos, prohibitions, and frenzied teenagers don’t work forever. All fads come to an end, especially when your main market is children. Prime knows it needs to mature to reach that next level. The first proof of this is the launch of Prime Energy, an energy drink targeted at adults. Even this has landed Prime in hot water, not that the owners will mind.

How does Prime truly mature and take its place next to Gatorade and Red Bull? It borrows from their most tried and tested strategy: sports marketing. Prime has already partnered with several top athletes and sports teams. Erling Haaland is probably the smartest partnership Prime could ask for. His sporting achievements and potential give Prime much-needed credibility with a wider audience, while his personality keeps him popular with the younger audience that still makes up the majority of Prime’s customers. He is the perfect bridge between the present and the future.

Prime has successfully hacked the sports hydration market. Looking at the numbers, the influencer-led approach is hard to beat. In just two years, Prime has gained a large market share at the expense of Gatorade. But this strategy is not sustainable. For the future, Prime has placed its bet on the authenticity of athletes. The same strategy has worked for Red Bull and Gatorade over the last decades. If Prime masters this next step, it will be impossible to ignore.