Launching Más+ with Messi: Positive Hydration for health-conscious Gen-Z.
CHALLENGE
Our colleagues in VCCP were collaborating with the world’s greatest soccer star, Lionel Messi and Mark Anthony Brands International to launch a new hydration beverage and they needed a robust digital presence.
The primary challenge was to develop a multifaceted digital experience that aligned with the early stages of brand development while capturing the initial excitement and converting it into tangible purchase intent. The target audience —15 to 25-year-old Latinx, a rapidly growing demographic in the U.S. — demanded a fresh approach that balanced cultural relevance with innovative branding. The business goals were clear: to establish a strong brand presence, build a customer base at pace, and drive immediate sales through compelling product launches.
APPROACH
We took a social and mobile-first approach, focusing on building a vibrant community around the Más+ brand and leveraging the personality of the greatest footballer of all time. The website, built using Shopify and the Dawn theme, was designed to evolve with the brand as it grows. The Más+ by Messi online presence was supported by targeted campaigns that got people engaging with the brand across different digital channels, all while highlighting what makes Más+ by Messi special and helping build trust with our audience. At such an early and critical phase of the brand's launch, converting customers is paramount.
Scalable UX approach that could expand as more ecommerce capabilities come in, and more products, content and functionality are added
Continuous improvement, gradually updating and evolving the site, in tandem with the brand as it grows
Evolving the brand styles defined by VCCP’s Girl & Bear into a digital space, we extended the palette out in the form of tints to allow for variety in design and colour changes on interaction, and defined a type stack for desktop and mobile. The styles set helped inform our foundations where we set our rules for colour combinations to ensure we met accessibility standards.
We built out a design toolkit based on the existing components with the Shopify theme, with some of the interaction design components being more bespoke to ensure the most engaging and memorable user experience.
The project saw close collaboration with several partners, including VCCP, Girl & Bear, and Novatize. VCCP played a key role from the very beginning, contributing to the development of the brand expression, tone of voice, and overall brand world, as well as through-the-line advertising. Meanwhile, Girl & Bear and Novatize supported content production, development, and implementation. Together, these collective efforts ensured that every aspect of the user experience was seamless and engaging, from navigation to content interaction.
IMPACT
We rolled out the launch in phases, starting with a teaser page, then offering early access to a limited edition product before going live with the full e-commerce site. This step-by-step approach built up excitement and led to an impressive 18-20% sign-up rate. The products sold out within an hour twice, showing there was real demand and that our engagement strategies were spot on. The launch wasn’t limited to one market either. Más+ was introduced in two major regions and made available in four languages, giving it a much wider reach. Social media played a key role in this success, helping to build an active online community around the brand’s message of ‘Positive Hydration’.
We’ve developed a toolkit across each phase of the brand launch allowing for efficient new market rollout of direct to consumer trading.
WORK HIGHLIGHTS
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