The Importance of a Well-Thought-Out Go-To-Market Strategy

One number you can take to the next board meeting: Of the roughly 30,000 consumer products introduced each year, only about 5% earn a lasting place in the market, which makes a disciplined go-to-market strategy one of the highest-leverage investments a launch team can make. Sources: Inc, MIT Professional Education, and Nulab.

On February 11, 2024, a prebiotic soda brand that started in a Texas kitchen ran its first national television commercial during Super Bowl LVIII. Poppi built the spot, titled The Future of Soda, around creators and a candy-colored brand identity rather than a legacy celebrity, and the launch moment reported by Adweek, Vending Market Watch, and the brand's own release measured by iSpot.tv landed the ad among the most-watched of the broadcast, reaching a reported 29.1 million households.

The go-to-market discipline behind that moment produced a defining result. In March 2025, PepsiCo agreed to acquire Poppi for $1.95 billion, a figure reported by Marketing Dive, Forbes, and CNBC, and confirmed in PepsiCo's own newsroom. A brand that reached national attention on Shark Tank in 2018 and launched at retail in 2020 had, inside of five years, become one of the most valuable independent beverage exits of the decade.

For a CMO weighing how to introduce a product into a crowded category, Poppi offers a working model: a go-to-market strategy is the roadmap that turns a launch into durable brand equity, and the brands that plan it deliberately are the ones that compound.

Anchor the launch in a category story, not a product spec

Poppi entered the market with a defined position inside the fast-growing modern soda category, pairing apple cider vinegar and prebiotics with the nostalgia of Root Beer, Orange Cream, and Cherry Limeade across a 14-flavor lineup. That framing gave a health-forward drink the emotional pull of classic soda and gave retailers a clear reason to make shelf space.

The strategic value of that clarity shows up in the odds. Research Nielsen published in 2014, drawn from a study of 12,000 European product launches and reported by Beverage Industry and FoodNavigator-USA, found that roughly 85 percent of new consumer packaged goods fall short of expectations within two years. The brands that reach the winning minority tend to arrive with a sharp position and a reason to exist that a shopper can name in one sentence.

Poppi's go-to-market plan treated brand differentiation as the first deliverable rather than the finishing touch. The packaging, the category language, and the flavor architecture all pointed at a single customer: a younger drinker trading full-sugar soda for something that still felt like a treat.

The marketing lesson: A launch earns its place when the positioning is decided before the media plan, giving every downstream tactic one consistent story to amplify.

Build the launch on earned media and creators

Poppi's most repeatable move was choosing integrated media weighted toward creators and earned reach. Its Super Bowl work leaned on names such as Alix Earle and Jake Shane, per Adweek's reporting on the campaign, extending a social-first playbook the brand had been running long before it bought national airtime. The television buy worked because it amplified a customer journey that already lived on TikTok, where fans generated the brand awareness that paid media then scaled.

That sequencing matters. The Super Bowl spot converted an existing creator community into a mass-reach moment, and the brand carried the same visual identity, the same voice, and the same flavor storytelling from a fifteen-second social clip to a national broadcast. Brand consistency across those surfaces is what let a young challenger read as a category leader.

The marketing lesson: Earned media and creator partnerships give a launch its credibility, and paid reach delivers the most brand lift when it amplifies momentum already visible in the customer journey.

Turn distribution and partnership into the growth engine

A go-to-market strategy lives at the point of purchase, and Poppi built its plan around winning the shelf. Distinctive packaging gave the product visibility in the cooler, national retail expansion put it within reach of the mainstream shopper, and the eventual PepsiCo partnership offered a distribution network few independent brands can match. The $1.95 billion valuation reported by Marketing Dive, Forbes, and CNBC reflected exactly that: a brand with proven demand meeting a partner that could carry it into far more doors.

Partnership and cross-promotion also strengthen the brands a company already owns. For PepsiCo, adding Poppi deepens a health-forward portfolio and opens a relationship with a younger audience, which is the kind of audience growth and customer retention that justifies acquisition economics. For a challenger, the right alliance converts hard-won brand equity into shelf space, average order value, and a longer customer lifetime value.

The marketing lesson: The strongest launches design distribution and partnership into the plan from day one, so demand generated by marketing meets the retail reach required to capture it.

Measure the launch against goals set in advance

Every element of a go-to-market plan works harder when it reports to a defined measurement framework. Poppi's rise is legible precisely because the outcomes were measurable: retail velocity, category share in modern soda, social engagement, and ultimately an acquisition price. A launch built with those markers in place can tell a winning tactic from a lucky one.

The discipline here is setting specific, time-bound goals before the launch and instrumenting the customer journey to read them. First-party data and personalization sharpen that read over time, turning a single launch into a repeatable growth marketing engine. The 85 percent shortfall rate Nielsen documented in 2014 underscores that measurement is what separates a brand that iterates toward product-market fit from one that guesses.

The marketing lesson: Goals and KPIs defined before launch turn marketing spend into a measurement framework, so a brand can double down on what converts and refine the rest.

The broader takeaway

Poppi's path connects the mechanisms a CMO already tracks: brand differentiation drove awareness, creator-led earned media drove conversion, distribution and partnership drove scale, and disciplined measurement tied the whole customer journey to brand equity and customer lifetime value. The $1.95 billion result reported across Marketing Dive, Forbes, and CNBC was the compounding of those choices rather than a single viral moment.

The thinking travels well beyond a soda aisle. Whether the product is a subscription app, a B2B platform, or a luxury line, a go-to-market strategy anchored in a clear position, integrated media, deliberate distribution, and a real measurement framework is what turns a launch into lasting brand strategy.

You can build your next launch on the same principles of brand strategy, customer experience programs, and a measurement framework that made Poppi one of the decade's standout exits. Let our marketing team build the go-to-market strategy for your product launch, or reach out to our team to talk it through.

Related reading

• Drop the Mic: Launch Your Marketing Like It's a Hot New Album
• Ready, Set, Launch: Your Go-To Checklist for New Product Hype
• Is This Thing On? How to Test If Your New Product Actually Has a Market

References

1. Marketing Dive, "PepsiCo buys prebiotic soda brand Poppi for nearly $2B." https://www.marketingdive.com/news/pepsico-buys-poppi-2B-pepsi-purchase-prebiotic-healthy-soda-better-for-you-drink-olipop-simply-pop/742679/
2. Forbes, "PepsiCo Buys Prebiotic Soda Brand Poppi For Nearly $2 Billion." https://www.forbes.com/sites/claraludmir/2025/03/17/pepsi-co-buys-poppi-/
3. CNBC, "PepsiCo buys prebiotic soda brand Poppi for more than $1.6 billion." https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/17/pepsico-buys-prebiotic-soda-brand-poppi-for-more-than-1point6-billion.html
4. PepsiCo Newsroom, "PepsiCo completes acquisition of poppi." https://www.pepsico.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025/pepsico-completes-acquisition-of-poppi-accelerating-strategic-portfolio-transformation
5. Adweek, "Poppi's Super Bowl 59 Ad Stars Alix Earle, Jake Shane, and Rob Rausch." https://www.adweek.com/commerce/poppi-super-bowl-59-ad-creators/
6. Vending Market Watch, "Poppi's first national commercial becomes the most watched ad during Super Bowl." https://www.vendingmarketwatch.com/beverage/news/53096595/poppis-first-national-commercial-becomes-the-most-watched-ad-during-super-bowl
7. GlobeNewswire (Poppi), "The Future of Soda is Now: Poppi's First National Commercial Wows Viewers." https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/02/13/2828347/0/en/The-Future-of-Soda-is-Now-Poppi-s-First-National-Commercial-Wows-Viewers-Becoming-the-Most-Watched-Ad-During-Super-Bowl-LVIII-on-Sunday-February-11.html
8. Nielsen, "Nielsen cracks the DNA of breakthrough innovation success, following study of 12,000 product launches across Europe" (2014). https://www.nielsen.com/uk/en/press-room/2014/Nielsen-cracks-the-DNA-of-breakthrough-innovation-success-following-study-of-12000-product-launches-across-Europe.html
9. Beverage Industry, "Nielsen: 85 percent of new products fail in the marketplace" (2014). https://www.bevindustry.com/articles/87718-nielsen-85-percent-of-new-products-fail-in-the-marketplace
10. FoodNavigator-USA, "Why do 85% of new CPG products fail within two years?" (2014). https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2014/07/31/Why-do-85-of-new-CPG-products-fail-within-two-years/
11. Fortune, "Poppi founder Allison Ellsworth went from making soda in her kitchen to selling her company to PepsiCo for $1.95 billion." https://fortune.com/2025/06/16/poppi-founder-allison-ellsworth-went-from-making-soda-in-her-kitchen-to-selling-her-company-to-pepsico-for-1-95-billion/

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