Each week, we'll bring you select insights from our newsletter, How to Build Brands and Influence People (HBBIP). To have all of these insights delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe today!
As a busy young professional looking to enjoy reliable nutrition while expending as little effort as possible, I was sold by the name alone. Athletic AND green? That’s two healthy things in a single brand name! These guys had to be legit. Once I (cheesy gordita) crunched the numbers, I found that they are, in fact, legit:
Athletic Greens EMV, 2018 - 2023
This is some of the craziest growth I’ve seen in the course of writing this newsletter. Numbers like this deserve a full deep-dive:
Athletic Greens Growth from 2018 - 2023
From 2018 ($403.2k EMV) to 2023 ($78.9M EMV), Athletic Greens surged by a casual 19,470%. Psh—imagine not growing 20,000% in five years. Couldn’t be me.
What’s more, this improvement wasn’t just a matter of new-brand buzz: Athletic Greens was founded in 2010, meaning that the brand’s incredible progress was the result of plenty of groundwork and iteration.
What we have here is another example of EMV predicting big gains across a host of KPIs: in 2022, the year where the roller coaster really started accelerating, Athletic Greens secured $115M in venture funding, achieving a $1.2B valuation. Perhaps even more importantly, 2022 was also the year that Athletic Greens signed with CreatorIQ for all its creator marketing needs!
While CreatorIQ can’t take credit for the brand’s remarkable rise, or for its creator marketing strategy, we can at least say we’ve played a role in some of Athletic Greens’ recent highlights. So without further ado, let’s kick back with some protein supplement meal replacement green juice …
What AG1 is not
Whoops. Alright then—in that case, let’s kick back with some AG1, and learn about some of the key trends behind the company’s success from May 2023 to April 2024.
Mmm, you can really taste the citrus bioflavonoids!
Giveaways Galore
The first thing that jumped out when I surveyed Athletic Greens’ most viral content was the traction that the brand has enjoyed from giveaway posts. Eight of Athletic Greens’ top 10 EMV-driving posts centered around these contests, which also sparked significant engagement throughout Athletic Greens’ top 50 pieces of content.
One of the brand’s most prolific giveaway organizers was entrepreneur and lifestyle influencer Tori Gerbig, who was responsible for Athletic Greens’ top two posts by EMV, as well as five of its top 10 posts overall. Tori’s all-pink aesthetic proved a hit amongst social media users, helping the creator rack up $1.2M EMV from May 2023 to April 2024—a whopping 632% YoY improvement. In all, giveaway content inspired $3.2M EMV for the brand, a higher total than any single creator. The contests served as an effective way to not only drum up excitement, but expose Athletic Greens to a wider audience.
Building Strong Partnerships
You know the rule, folks: if a brand’s top EMV-driving hashtag has to do with its brand partners or community-building efforts, then said brand is probably in pretty good shape. And you already know that even for a brand called ‘Athletic Greens,’ AG1 is in absolutely phenomenal shape.
So it’s no surprise that #AG1Partner ranked as the brand’s No. 1 tag from May 2023 to April 2024, pulling in a cool $14.6M EMV. And it’s even less of a surprise when you consider who some of those AG1 Partners are.
Perhaps the most impactful partnership that Athletics Greens forged over the past year was with America’s favorite fraternal football stars, Jason and Travis Kelce. By serving as an official sponsor of the brothers’ New Heights podcast, Athletic Greens enjoyed steady shoutouts in the description text of the podcast’s episodes and clips on YouTube. Given the year that the Kelce boys have had, this partnership proved to be a pretty prudent decision on Athletic Greens’ part. Tapping into the Kelce media machine at the start of 2023 is like buying Nvidia stock at the start of 2023: even if some critics are grumbling about overexposure or speculating about an impending split, you’re doing pretty great right now. And indeed, New Heights yielded $1.8M EMV as one of Athletic Greens’ top earners.
No Time for TikTok
Usually when I highlight a brand, I call out the crucial role that TikTok played in its growth. It’s become something of a trope for these write-ups, but hey, I only do it because it’s so frequently true.
Well, this isn’t one of those occasions. In fact, while I don’t have figures on this, I would venture that Athletic Greens has the lowest TikTok total, and has seen the least growth from the platform, of any brand I’ve analyzed over the last year or so. Check it out:
Athletic Greens EMV and YoY Growth by channel
Not only was TikTok’s contribution miniscule compared to what Athletic Greens saw from Instagram and YouTube, but even this miniscule amount represented a drastic decline from the previous 12 months. Going through Athletic Greens’ top posts by EMV from May 2023 to April 2024, I didn’t encounter a single bit of TikTok content until I reached post No. 66. What’s more, there were just three TikTok videos amongst Athletic Greens’ top 100 posts.
To be clear, I’m not saying this is a bad thing. Need I remind you, Athletic Greens has grown nearly 20,000% over the past five years, so I’m not about to question the brand’s strategy. If anything, it’s further proof of the Creator Economy’s multifaceted nature: while TikTok is all the rage for some brands and verticals, it’s not a prerequisite for growth. Athletic Greens has carved out a niche via Instagram giveaways and YouTube partnerships, demonstrating what works for health and fitness brands in the current creator climate.
To get all of these stories, plus much more, delivered to your inbox weekly, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.
