CLIENT: 5-HOUR ENERGY

AGENCY: IN-HOUSE

A culture-led drop: make “Big Grill Energy” a product people chased—not a slogan.

We launched 5-hour ENERGY’s Inspired Energizing BBQ Sauce as a free limited drop, unveiled with celebrity partner Brian Baumgartner via an exclusive with Food & Wine, then amplified through BBQ creators and a “last chance” social giveaway to sustain demand.

Work

• Launch: exclusive Food & Wine reveal + owned/partner social rollout.

• Amplification: BBQ influencers used the sauce in recipes to demonstrate real use-cases.

• Sustaining conversation: “last chance” giveaway + drop content to extend attention across multiple drops.

My role

Outside vendor oversight + creative sign-off.

• Managed external creative vendors (brand content + influencer creative) and provided creative direction/sign-off through launch and campaign flight.

• Partnered with internal teams (marketing + legal) on launch readiness and guardrails.

Proof

• Demand: Sold out in under five minutes on launch day and within 24 hours for every drop.

• Earned scale: 252 placements generating 281M+ impressions (reported).

• Influencer quality: 92% positive/neutral comment sentiment and 8.8% expressed purchase intent vs 5.7% benchmark.

• Search lift: Drove 28% of organic search clicks and contributed to an observed 15% YoY increase in brand search activity.