THE GOAL

Drive product activations at scale across varied consumer types 

Hydrant is a hydration-centric wellness brand that offers electrolyte powders for energy, immunity, and sleep. Their consumers integrate Hydrant products during their daily routines, thus becoming an essential part of their lives. Over the past few years, the brand gained national distribution in retail accounts, so they sought to continue their expansion and reach new consumers. As a direct-to-consumer brand, Hydrant relied on digital media to build awareness and acquire new customers. Christina De Vecchis-Sciuto, Vice President of Marketing at Hydrant, shared “the latest iOS update made it difficult to target people effectively, and we realized that we can’t rely on digital alone to reach consumers.” Hydrant was forced to move beyond digital advertising to reach these high-performing, “get stuff done” individuals. 

Prior to Recess, Hydrant had a lean field marketing team so activating events at scale was nearly impossible. The Hydrant team tried to hire an agency to help execute their event strategy. "We talked to experiential agencies about building out the street teams for Hydrant, but they were not Hydrant employees,” says Ms. De Vecchis-Sciuto. She felt strongly about the importance of having employees speak about their product. “We wanted to activate for four weeks in specific markets, but we did not use this model because of cost." Along with the high costs of hiring brand ambassadors, Ms. De Vecchis-Sciuto decided to pass on the opportunity because of the agency’s lack of familiarity with the Hydrant products and benefits