Zevia Spends Its Largest Budget Yet on Cardi B — Here's Why Celebrity Endorsement Still Works for Small Beverage Brands

Zevia, the zero-sugar soda brand, announced its largest paid campaign to date, built around a partnership with Cardi B, according to Marketing Dive. The brand — which holds about 1.5% of the U.S. soda market by volume — chose the rapper to anchor messaging around "real talk" on ingredient transparency and zero-sugar alternatives. This is the first time Zevia has deployed celebrity endorsement at scale, and it signals a shift from digital-only tactics to paid above-the-line spend.

The campaign centers on Cardi B as the face of Zevia's messaging, with creative running across television, digital video, and social. Zevia's approach leans on the rapper's established reputation for candor — the brand positioned her as the voice for consumers who want soda without the sugar or artificial sweeteners. The creative does not rely on aspirational lifestyle imagery. Instead, it frames the product as a straightforward swap, with Cardi B delivering direct-to-camera statements about ingredients. Marketing Dive reported that Zevia coordinated the launch across paid placements and organic social, timing it to maximize reach during a period of heightened consumer interest in functional beverages.

The underlying mechanism is alignment over audience size. Zevia did not select Cardi B for her 167 million Instagram followers alone. The brand matched her public persona — unfiltered, opinionated, skeptical of corporate spin — to its own positioning as the anti-establishment soda. This is not influencer marketing in the traditional sense. Zevia used the celebrity as a credibility transfer device. When a figure known for calling out inauthenticity endorses a product on the basis of its ingredient list, the consumer reads it as validation rather than paid promotion. The brand is betting that perceived authenticity converts better than reach metrics, even when the latter is expensive.

The second lever is the zero-sugar category's growth trajectory. Nielsen data shows zero-sugar beverages grew 8.3% in dollar sales in the 52 weeks ending August 2024, outpacing total soda. Zevia timed its largest spend to ride category momentum, using a high-profile ambassador to compete for shelf space and mental availability against Coca-Cola Zero and Pepsi Zero. The campaign is not designed to go viral. It is designed to make Zevia the zero-sugar option a grocery shopper remembers when standing in the soda aisle.

A small physical-product brand can run the same play without a seven-figure celebrity budget. The steal is not the celebrity — it is the credibility transfer from a trusted voice. Identify a micro-influencer or creator whose public persona aligns with your product's core claim. For a direct-to-consumer coffee brand selling single-origin beans, that might be a food science YouTuber with 15,000 subscribers who routinely breaks down supply chains. Reach out with a simple offer: a flat fee for one video explaining why your sourcing model matters, shot in their usual format. Budget $2,000 to $5,000 for a creator in the 10,000 to 50,000 follower range. Request usage rights for the video on your own paid social. Run the creator's endorsement as a paid ad on Meta or YouTube, targeting your exact customer demo. The creator's credibility does the work. Your paid spend amplifies it. Track conversion with a UTM-tagged landing page. If the first creator converts, repeat the model with two more in adjacent niches.

The broader pattern is that celebrity and creator endorsements still convert when the match is tight and the message is narrow. Zevia did not ask Cardi B to sell a lifestyle. The brand asked her to validate a specific product claim — zero sugar, no artificial ingredients — that her audience already believes she cares about. The campaign works because it borrows trust rather than renting reach. A one-person brand with $5,000 and a clear product story can do the same.