One of the greatest stars of country music is to take part in sports drinks wars.
Bodyarmor announced on Monday that the seven-time Grammy Award-winning singer, Carrie Underwood, will be her first star supporter, as the sports drink manufacturer wants to expand its attraction. As part of the transaction, Underwood will obtain an undisclosed stake in the company and will appear alongside James Harden in Bodyarmor Lyte’s first television campaign, debuting on Monday during “The Bachelor”. It will also appear in advertisements for the premium SportWater Bodyarmor.
“I’ve probably spent the last 15 years working on myself and I’ve fallen more and more in love with health and fitness,” Underwood told CNBC. “So, everything connects him and I like that I managed to create this great network of health and fitness things that happen in my life.”
Underwood joins an impressive list of supporters of the brand, including NBA star James Harden, PGA golfer Dustin Johnson, MLB Mike Trout, pro tennis player Naomi Osaka and soccer star Megan Rapinoe. The late Kobe Bryant was one of the initial investors in Bodyarmor and played a key role in adopting the brand’s mainstream.
Underwood said, while she’s obviously not a professional athlete (though she jokes that singing can be physically difficult), she believes she can help open the doors to Bodyarmor by reaching a new audience.
“I have to talk to working moms and people like me because that’s what I do and I know that,” she said.
“Carrie is what we see in many consumers … She is a mother and she is a wife. She has two children and is on the run, leading this hectic lifestyle and in need of healthy hydration, “said Mike Repole, CEO and founder of Bodyarmor.
Underwood said one of the things that was appealing about the deal was that it was offered a share capital in Bodyarmor.
“You want to be personally invested for the company to be successful. It’s definitely a motivator just to be in it and work and bring the product to as many people as possible,” she said.
Underwood’s business portfolio has grown rapidly over the past decade. The country singer gained fame in 2005, after winning American Idol. It has continued to sell over 64 million records worldwide. He appeared in television, film, is the voice of Sunday Night football on NBC and is also a best-selling author.
She was also very active in the fitness area. Nearly six years ago, he ventured into fitness clothing with the launch of CALIA, a training line created exclusively for Dick’s sporting goods. The lifestyle brand was a rapid success, becoming the second most popular brand for women for the sporting goods retailer. In December, Dick introduced its first pop-up stores with the brand.
This year, Underwood introduced a fitness app called FIT52 in collaboration with her longtime personal trainer Eve Oreland. She was inspired by Underwood’s passion for an active lifestyle, she said.
The singer’s latest partnership aligns perfectly with her personal mission to ensure that health and well-being are at the forefront of everything she does.
“I am so lucky that I have managed to build my passion for health and fitness into a business model and a personal brand that I can stand behind and be proud of,” she said.
Bodyarmor was founded in 2011 by businessman and veteran of the beverage industry, Mike Repole, who previously helped found Glaceau, the producer of Vitaminwater. The brand is the third largest sports drink on the market, with 13% of sales in the category, according to data from Beverage Digest.
Bodyarmor had sales of $ 1 billion last year, up 70 percent from 2019, Repole said. Sales were partially helped by Coca-Cola’s acquisition of a minority stake in 2018, which led to increased visibility and distribution.
“It’s definitely one of the fastest growing sports drinks, for sure,” said Duane Stanford, editor and editor of Beverage Digest. “They managed to sustain significant growth rates, which was very interesting.”
Repole’s goal is to dethrone PepsiCo-owned industry leader Gatorade, which controls 70 percent of the market.
“I wanted to be the number one sports drink by 2025,” he said. “I said that in 2011. A lot of people laughed.”
“Gatorade right now is five times our size,” he continued. “10 years ago, they were 500 billion times our size. So we narrowed the gap from 500 billion to five times our size.”
Making the brand more popular through recommendations like Underwood’s is one of the ways it expects to get there.
“The other traditional sports drinks don’t go out of the athletes’ box and you know that Bodyarmor has always been innovative, it’s always been different,” he said.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the father of CNBC.