By: Alejandro Echeverria
Feb. 23, 2022
Photo Credit: Associated Press
In September, I covered the initial success of PRIME and other influencer-backed brands within the sport landscape. You can read that story from Issue I here. At the time, PRIME had just announced its first venture into professional sports, having signed a deal to become the official hydration sponsor of the historic Premier League team, Arsenal FC. Since then, the company has continued to see tremendous growth, earning a reported $250M in retail sales in its first year.
PRIME’s increasingly high demand, especially within the U.K., has led to a scarce supply of the drink. It has been reported that small shops and certain individuals have created a secondary market for the drink, charging much higher prices than the original retail amount. Fans of the product have even been seen camping out before stores open in order to secure themselves some PRIME.
Currently, PRIME is available in the U.S. at Walmart, Target, Kroger, CVS, GNC, Ralph’s, and The Vitamin Shoppe. In the U.K., it was available at ASDA, but is now exclusively sold at Aldi stores. The product itself includes a variety of different flavors, with new ones coming out quite frequently. PRIME also released an energy drink on Jan. 4 exclusively through the company’s website, and all five flavors sold out within an hour.
If that wasn’t enough, PRIME Co-Founders KSI and Logan Paul started the new year off with a bang as they announced that they had secured a deal to become the official sponsor of the UFC on a three-year deal. This deal marks the first time that PRIME has partnered with a global sports organization, and it shows a clear initiative to globalize the product and brand.
The deal includes the following: promotion of their product during all pay-per-view (PPV) and fight night events, the renaming of the red and blue corners in the UFC octagon to “Prime Hydration Recovery Zones,” the incorporation of PRIME as the presenting sponsor of UFC weigh-ins and the UFC Foundation’s inaugural presenting partner, and the incorporation of PRIME as an official partner of UFC Performance Institutes in Las Vegas and Shanghai. The multitude of activations will provide the company with tremendous visibility around the world.
Most recently, KSI and Logan Paul attended UFC 284 in Australia to promote the product, as it can now be found at Mr Supplement and Coles across the country. The very next day, PRIME took advantage of another sports property, the Super Bowl, by securing an advertisement spot during the game’s coverage. According to Paul himself, as of January alone, the company has made $45 million.
As PRIME continues to invest in the sports ecosystem and use the power of influencer marketing, the company has tremendous potential for longevity and growth around the world.