Nurri

Building one of America’s fastest-growing beverage brands

Nurri broke through because it offered more than a functional product. It gave people a brand they wanted to find, talk about, and make part of their routine. Launching nationally through Costco meant entering a system of ~650 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico with aggressive expectations from day one. For a new brand with no awareness and no retail history, the challenge was not just to show up. It was to survive the trial, create momentum fast, and scale with urgency.

Outcomes

• National Costco launch across ~650 stores
• $10M+ in attributable sales within year one
• Expanded from one chocolate milkshake to four flavors in under six months
• Named Instacart’s Fastest-Growing Emerging Brand of 2025
• Recognized as a 2026 Bain & Company U.S. Insurgent Brand
• Recognized by TrendHunter
• Thousands of UGC videos created by fans and creators
• High-volume community engagement that turned discovery into advocacy

What we learned

Product truth gets attention. Brand pull creates momentum.

Consumers did not respond to Nurri because it was another high-protein shake. They responded because it felt different from day one. It felt social-first, accessible, joyful, and built for real people, not just performance-driven messaging. That distinction mattered in a category where most brands still lead with formulas, claims, and function-first language.

Scrappy wins when the market is moving in real time.

The Nurri launch proved that grit matters. This was not a polished, overly controlled rollout. It was scrappy by design. The brand had to move fast, adapt in real time, and embrace a more untraditional marketing approach to create urgency and cultural interest around a product landing inconsistently across the country.

The rollout became the marketing.

The Nurri Hunt became one of the clearest proof points. What started as a response to a fragmented Costco rollout quickly turned into a discovery mechanic that made the brand feel rare, exciting, and worth searching for. Instead of fighting the inconsistency, we turned it into energy. Creators and consumers hunted for the product, posted when they found it, and helped build early cult-like momentum around the brand.

Social-first storytelling made the brand feel alive.

Influencer content, paid social, organic-feeling UGC, and active community management gave Nurri a personality people could connect to immediately. It did not feel like a brand speaking at consumers. It felt like a brand being built with them, in real time.

UGC turned trial into ownership.

Thousands of UGC videos reinforced that point. Consumers were not just trying Nurri. They were sharing it, recommending it, hunting for it, and bringing others into the experience. That level of participation helped move the brand beyond a launch campaign and into something far more valuable: consumer ownership.

Joy is a serious growth lever.

In an overly functional category, making people smile, making the product feel craveable, and making the brand feel easy to love created a stronger connection than traditional protein messaging ever could.

The bottom line

The result was not just awareness. It was affinity, velocity, and retail proof. That combination is what helped turn Nurri from a new entrant into a cult favorite with real staying power and real commercial traction.