If “drink more water” is a business, he sold over $100 million.

When it was founded in 2012, Liquid I.V. may not have imagined that a seemingly ordinary packet of hydration powder would become an important brand in the U.S. functional beverage market a few years later.

It did not create an entirely new beverage.

But it redefined a consumer need: drinking water could also become a way of managing health.

Today, Liquid I.V. has become a representative brand in the U.S. functional hydration powder category, and was acquired by Unilever, becoming an important part of its Wellbeing business. By 2025, it had become one of the fastest-growing brands in the segment; its sugar-free line alone contributed nearly 30% of the brand's sales, and the brand grew 16% for the year.

This brand is worth discussing in detail.

Image source: Liquid I.V.

01

Discovery, change, growth

The growth of many consumer goods does not come from creating an entirely new product.

Rather, it comes from discovering that consumers actually had a need all along; it was just that no one had told them before.

In Liquid I.V.'s early days, electrolyte products were mostly confined to sports and special hydration scenarios.

Consumers usually only thought about replenishing electrolytes after intense exercise and sweating.

But they wanted to change this perception.

The brand launched the Hydration Multiplier line, adding ingredients such as electrolytes and vitamins to portable drink mixes so users can add them directly to water and drink.

Compared with traditional beverages, it solved several problems:More convenient to carry; more usage scenarios; better aligned with young consumers' demand for health management。

Image source: Liquid I.V.

More importantly, Liquid I.V. did not position itself as a simple 'sports hydration product'; instead, it continuously expanded product usage scenarios, making consumers realize that hydration can become a healthy habit.

The problem many functional consumer products face is not that the product is bad, but that consumers do not know why they need it.

What Liquid I.V. does is translate professional functions into everyday language.

They no longer emphasize complex nutritional ingredients; instead, they tell consumers: after travel, exercise, or busy work, they can maintain their physical state in a simpler way.

This shift fromcreating consumption reasonsis alsothe key to the growth of many new consumer brands。

Image source: Liquid I.V.

02

Breaking the deadlock, reshaping, expanding

Liquid I.V.’s early development path was similar to that of many new consumer brands.

At first, the brand mainly relied on online channels, accumulating users through its official website, e-commerce, and social media. Compared with traditional beverage companies that rely on large-scale advertising and offline channels, new brands can quickly build consumer awareness through content.

As market recognition increased, the brand began entering mainstream U.S. retail systems, including channels such as Costco and Target.

In 2020, Unilever announced the acquisition of Liquid I.V., further helping the brand expand its market scale. After joining Unilever, they continued to advance globalization and now cover multiple overseas markets.

However, if you look back at Liquid I.V.’s development process, you’ll find that the key to it truly building brand influence was not entering large retailers, but finding a growth approach better suited to itself in the social media era.

Image source: TikTok

03

Content, connection, conversion

Most supplement brands’ TikTok strategies are essentially moving TV commercials into short videos: find an expert, set up the product, and read a statement about its efficacy.

Liquid I.V. took a completely different path; its influencer collaboration content doesn’t even look like advertising.

Aaron Jones, a relevant brand executive, once said,The key to brand growth lies in getting consumers to integrate the product into daily life。

Rather than simply emphasizing product features, the brand naturally hopes to build long-term connections with consumers through content.

Image source: marketingdive

Liquid I.V. uses exactly this content logic to integrate the product into different consumers’ life scenarios:

For example, @ally_wong’s content leans more toward daily life and food; she doesn’t deliberately design a complex storyline, but directly goes from unpacking and mixing to drinking, placing Liquid I.V. into a very ordinary at-home scenario.

The product is no longer just electrolyte powder in a packet, but becomes one option for an everyday drink.

Image source: TikTok

Another influencer, @lauraelizabeth6, showcases the product through lifestyle documentation: the video intersperses scenes of driving trips, travel, and more, and also shows Liquid I.V. products on store shelves, linking the brand with everyday travel and travel consumption.

Neither type of content deliberately explains complex product ingredients; instead, through specific usage methods, it lets viewers intuitively understand how the product can fit into their own lives.

Image source: TikTok

This is also where TikTok differs from traditional marketing channels.

In the past, brands needed to find a unified message to convey to consumers; on TikTok, brands can use a large number of creators to get products into different interest circles.

With the development of TikTok Shop, the distance between content and transactions has also been further shortened.

After users see recommendations from creators, they can complete purchases directly, without going through traditional shopping processes such as searching and comparing.

For products like Liquid I.V. that rely on awareness to drive purchases, content e-commerce creates a closed loop between brand education and sales conversion.

04

What needs to be reshaped is not necessarily the product itself.

For a brand wanting to enter overseas markets, the product itself is only the foundation; what is more important is finding the way consumers understand it.

Electrolyte supplementation is not a new invention, but Liquid I.V. redefined its consumption scenarios, allowing a product that originally belonged to the sports category to enter a larger health consumption market.

And TikTok further amplified this change.

It enables brands to no longer just wait for consumers to search, but to actively appear in front of consumers through content.

For more and more brands hoping to expand overseas, the lesson Liquid I.V. offers may be: the products that truly have a chance to break out are not necessarily new things that have never appeared on the market, but rather ones that can use new ways to help consumers rediscover an existing need.