HAPPY DAD: THE 21ST CENTURY MARKETING PLAYBOOK

Breaking Down The Strategy

In the last few years we’ve seen a massive rise in “Creator brands”.

But while the likes of PRIME and Feastables have been giving most of the attention & credit. There’s another creator-led brand that is absolutely killing it right now.

• It’s the most followed beer/seltzer in the world

• They sold over 2.6 million 12-packs in 2022

• And is set to make a $230MM in revenue in 2023

They’re called Happy Dad.

And this is how they pulled off one of the best alcohol marketing plays of the 21st Century:

1) Product-Audience Fit

For those that don’t know, Happy Dad is a hard seltzer that was launched by a group called the NELK Boys.

I’m not sure how I could explain NELK to you… they’re kind of like American frat boys that became wildly successful on social media.

This photo will give you a good gist of who they are:

Okay, now you know who they are, back to the product-audience fit point.

Because traditionally in marketing you would always talk about the product-market fit.

Because people would create a product → then find the right market for it.

But times have changed, especially with creator-led brands.

Creators already have the audience, so they have to flip the system on it’s head and create a product that their audience will buy.

And NELK did that magically.

Their content consists of:

• Partying

• Shotgunning beers

• And drinking a lot of alcohol

And that meant their audience consists of:

• People who liked to party

• People who think shotgunning is fun

• And people who love to get drunk with friends

So, when they launched Happy Dad, it was the perfect product for their audience.

An underrated step in the journey and arguably the most important.

2) Brand-First Approach

Rather than focusing on trying to make Happy Dad the best seltzer possible, the NELK boys put all of their attention into making it the coolest seltzer possible.

And that all started with going all in on the brand.

So they launched:

• Happy Dad hats

• Happy Dad t-shirts

• Happy Dad jackets

And they collaborated with massive names like Snoop Dog & Sean O’malley to make that merch even cooler.

Now, if you turned up to any college campus in the USA you’d see kids wearing some sort of Happy Dad merch.

It’s said they make around $10,000,000 every time they do a new merch “drop”.

Which just goes to show how much more than a seltzer Happy Dad is.

Yes, the product is a seltzer.

But what they really created was a brand.

3) Using Audience’s Wants

NELK’s audience is mainly male’s in and around university. Let’s say between 18-25.

And what do males between 18-25 want?

3 things:

• To have fun

• Seem cool

• And be around good looking girls

So that’s exactly what they portray Happy Dad as bringing.

In just one quick scroll of their Instagram feed you’ll see:

• Attractive women in Happy Dad hats drinking Happy Dad

• Male idols like Dana White, Snoop Dog, & Sean O’malley

• As well as a lot of fun parties

They make drinking Happy Dad seem like it ticks all of the boxes their audience wants.

So they too drink Happy Dad and expect the same results.

No one wants to work with a fat personal trainer and no one wants to drink a seltzer that doesn’t seem like a fun time.

4) Using The 20%

Right at the beginning of this breakdown I explained that most B2C brands spend anywhere from 10-20% on marketing each year.

Well, like many creator-led brands Happy Dad get all of their marketing virtually for free just due to their die hard fanbase.

But one thing they’ve done an awesome job of is using that (now extra) 20% to rocket the brands growth even further.

One of my favourite examples of this is the store shutdowns they do.

They essentially:

• Tell all of their fans which stores stock Happy Dad

• Then tell them they’re going to be there

• And create a mini-event around it

There’s a couple of simple things that does:

A) It causes a FOMO hype effect - People see everyone else hyped to be getting Happy Dad so they feel like they should check it out too.

B) It lets people know which stores sell Happy Dad - So even those who don’t turn up, now know they can get a pack in their own time.

At this point they’ve already created a brand that 99% of college kids want to buy, so it’s all about letting them know where to buy it from.

And this is an awesome way to do just that.

5) Leveraging What They Have

I tried to keep the obvious points out of this breakdown but I thought it would be a sin to not mention just how well they’ve leveraged their “Full Send Podcast” to push Happy Dad.

Their podcast has been wildly successful over the last few years and they’ve managed to get guests like:

• Elon Musk

• Donald Trump

• Mark Cuban

• Dana White

• OJ Simpson

And they rack up millions of views with every episode.

But what they don’t do is let those views go to waste.

Because every episode is like a mini Happy Dad advert.

• They have Happy Dad cans all over the set

• They drink Happy Dad on the podcast

• And they have guests drink it too

How much would it cost to get Elon Musk using your brand like this?

Answer: It’s impossible

Yet, they just smoothly got him sipping away on their drink while on the podcast.

So simple, yet so so clever.

The sun has now set and it’s time for me to kick back!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

This has been a breakdown of Happy Dad’s marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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