Zevia PBC (NYSE: ZVIA) is deploying its largest marketing campaign to date behind a formulation story that ingredient suppliers and co-manufacturers have been watching for years: a zero-sugar, naturally sweetened carbonated soft drink built without artificial sweeteners, colors, or flavors. The "Real Talk Interpreter" campaign, featuring GRAMMY Award-winning artist Cardi B, puts Zevia's clean-label credentials at the center of national streaming TV, retail shelf displays, and social media activations, a signal that the brand sees its ingredient platform — not just its taste profile — as a differentiator worth amplifying at scale.
The Formulation Angle
Zevia's beverages are sweetened with stevia, a high-intensity botanical sweetener that has gained significant traction in better-for-you beverage formulation over the past decade. The full portfolio carries Non-GMO Project verification, is certified Kosher and gluten-free, and is positioned as vegan-compliant — a specification suite that aligns with retailer clean-label requirements and increasingly stringent private-label standards at grocery, mass, and natural channel accounts. The brand explicitly avoids the "fake sweeteners" language that increasingly resonates with retail buyers scrutinizing ingredient decks, drawing a clear line between stevia-based formulations and those using acesulfame potassium or sucralose. In the campaign's hero spots, Cardi B is shown consuming Orange Creamsicle and Creamy Root Beer SKUs — two flavors where natural flavor sourcing and the absence of artificial color are commercially meaningful claims at shelf.
Retail and Supply Footprint
Zevia is currently distributed across more than 39,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Canada, spanning grocery, drug, warehouse club, mass, natural, convenience, and e-commerce channels. That footprint represents substantial demand signals for upstream stevia ingredient suppliers, natural flavor houses, and contract beverage manufacturers servicing the better-for-you CSD segment. The campaign extends to custom in-store retail displays featuring Cardi B, reinforcing the brand's presence at point of sale during the high-velocity summer selling season — historically the most competitive period for carbonated soft drink volume.
The timing is commercially deliberate. Zero-sugar soda has been outpacing the broader carbonated soft drink category as consumers trade away both full-sugar and artificially sweetened formats in favor of naturally sweetened alternatives. For ingredient suppliers in the stevia, natural flavor, and beverage acid segments, Zevia's scale and distribution reach make its promotional investments a useful proxy for where retail buyer demand is heading. Kirsten Suarez, Chief Marketing Officer of Zevia, framed the partnership as a tool to expand the brand's addressable consumer base without compromising its ingredient standards — a balance that has long defined the tension between growth and clean-label purity in the better-for-you beverage segment.
For formulators and brand developers tracking the natural sweetener landscape, Zevia's continued investment in its stevia-forward platform — now backed by one of the most recognizable celebrity voices in the U.S. — reinforces that non-GMO, naturally sweetened carbonated beverages have moved decisively from specialty to mainstream retail. The campaign runs through summer 2026 across streaming, social, and in-store channels, with a consumer sweepstakes accessible at zevia.com/real and participating retail QR codes.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
