Olivia Culpo enters ready-to-drink cocktail space with VIDE Beverages

Ready-to-drink cocktails have garnered enormous popularity in the last few years with companies releasing a stream of options for consumers looking for a convenient alternative to a craft cocktail. VIDE is the latest entrant into the crowded space and is looking to stand out by taking on Olivia Culpo as the company’s creative director and investor. David Adelman is also a lead investor in the company’s most recent funding round.

VIDE did not disclose the size of the funding round. However, the brand did say that it has plans for plans for expansion, new products and more hires in 2021.

Celebrity investors are becoming more commonplace as brands move from having famous faces as brand representatives to actually bringing them onto the team through a commitment of either finances or talent. This approach to celebrity endorsement gives brands that amass these investments an air of legitimacy as such a commitment requires a more personal stake in the brand from these celebrities. The result is that oftentimes this means the celebrity’s fans will view a brand in a new light and follow suit to invest in the brand that has gained the support of an icon through purchasing the product.

This approach has gained steam particularly in newer categories such as plant-based products and RTD beverages. Brands like Good Catch and Oxigen have recently gained celebrity investors; Good Catch has done so in two separate rounds and has also hooked $50.7 million in funding, according to Crunchbase.

RTD is a category that has seen triple digit growth over the last two summers, with hard seltzer becoming a mainstay. VIDE is latching onto this popularity with its direct-to-consumer cocktails that are available in 30 states but is putting a spin on the popular malt beverages. Instead of using a malt base and pairing it with the fruity flavors that have become popular, VIDE integrates vodka into its mix. The cocktails currently come in two flavors: watermelon and cranberry.

While hard seltzer can seem synonymous with the concept of canned cocktails, it is not the only sort of canned alcoholic beverage on the market. Canned wine has also become popular. Last year, AB InBev purchased The Fat Jewish’s Babe Wine for an undisclosed sum in a category that generated more than $81 million in annual sales in 2019 – nearly twice what it generated in 2018, according to Nielsen data. Canned liquor is also making a splash with big-name brands like Jack Daniels releasing blended whiskey cocktails.

While it remains to be seen which cocktails consumers will gravitate toward long term, it is unlikely that the popularity of the convenience of canned cocktails will fade, making an investment in the space a potentially lucrative bet for manufacturers and celebrities alike.