Yerba Madre’s Super Bowl campaign encourages viewers to take a hike

Super Bowl Sunday is typically more about consuming calories than burning them, but this year, beverage brand Yerba Madre is encouraging people to do a little bit of both.

The yerba mate company known for its distinct yellow cans has been carving out its space in the sports world in recent months, and there’s no bigger stage in American sports marketing than the Super Bowl. Yerba Madre CMO Emily Kortlang said she knew she wanted the brand to have some sort of Super Bowl presence—just not in the traditional TV sense.

“We don’t have the budgets to do big ads, but even if we did, I don’t think we would,” Kortlang, who previously worked in marketing for brands including Apple, Beats by Dre, and Red Bull, told Marketing Brew. “The world of advertising at the moment, and the world of content, is very broadcast. It’s brands talking at people, and the DNA of our product is…all about sharing, community, and conversation. In that sense, having an ad which kind of shouts at people doesn’t feel true to the product.”

Instead, Yerba Madre is running a social and experiential campaign called “Trailgating,” which encourages people to take a hike before watching the game, putting the brand’s typical earthy spin on the traditional tailgating experience.

Up that hill

The campaign, developed in partnership with creative agency Public Display of Affection, centers around a Super Bowl Sunday hike at Oak Canyon Ranch in Los Angeles County, Yerba Madre shared exclusively with Marketing Brew. The hike itself is about an hour long and culminates in a woodsy tailgating party complete with games, giveaways, snacks, yerba mate on tap, and a screening of the Super Bowl.

“It is a full branded experience, but it feels more like a hangout,” Kortlang said. “It’s got all the tropes of tailgating, but done in our own way.”

The experience, she said, is designed to bring people together in an outdoor setting, which connects to Yerba Madre’s roots in sustainability as one of the first companies to become a certified B Corp, and to the history of yerba mate more generally. The beverage is a natural source of caffeine made by steeping the leaves of a plant native to South America that’s meant to be shared.

Kortlang said the hike was originally set to take place on the East Coast, but cold weather forced her team to pivot to California, where Yerba Madre is headquartered. Still, she said, she hopes people across the country can participate in their own ways, which her team is encouraging by sending kits to East Coast-based influencers and creators containing tailgating gear like branded jerseys and beanies, cornhole sets, and Yeti coolers filled with Yerba Madre.

Since Yerba Madre is a “grassroots-level brand” focused on community building, Kortlang said she’s more concerned with KPIs like engagement and sentiment than brand awareness and sales. “It means that maybe we grow slower, but we grow in a way that our community respects us and that we’d never feel like we’ve sold out,” she said.

“Our community is the best recruitment tool for us,” Kortlang added.

A nontraditional approach to the Super Bowl might also help Yerba Madre stand out amid a slew of both beverage and health-food brands advertising in the game.

Pitching in

When Kortlang first joined Yerba Madre about two years ago, she originally felt that sports was “not for us,” she said, given the dominance and big budgets of some of the other energy drinks marketing in the space. But when she noticed international soccer stars like Leo Messi embracing yerba mate, she said she felt it gave the brand “a legitimate reason” to be involved in sports.

Yerba Madre underwent a rebrand in May, at which point the company signed about 20 sponsorship deals with athletes across sports including soccer, basketball, and surfing, Kortlang said. The brand also inked deals with three soccer clubs—Los Angeles FC, Angel City FC, and Vermont Green FC—and this week, it announced several new athlete partners.

Given Yerba Madre’s ties to soccer, Kortlang said she has her eye on the World Cup; if people respond well to the Super Bowl event, she might look to re-create the tailgating event this summer.

“It’s an idea that lives beyond this moment,” she said. “Tailgating in the US is a cultural phenomenon, and we can ride the coattails of that with a new wave of what it could mean to redefine it for our community.”