Six college athletes drinking Phoenix Hydration Energy Drink
The Challenge
When One 11 Brands launched Drink PHX — a better-for-you energy drink backed by Barstool Sports — they faced the toughest challenge in beverages: breaking through in a category dominated by Celsius, Red Bull, C4, Prime, and more.
The goals were ambitious:
- Flood social media with buzz around their July 14th launch
- Generate hundreds of pieces of creator content to fuel future paid media
- Drive in-store foot traffic to Kroger, PHX’s largest retail partner (specifically in Ohio)
The Strategy
MarketPryce designed a three-phase campaign to turn PHX into a college campus movement:
- Athlete Seeding at Scale
- 300+ athletes seeded across July and August
- Product-first approach ensured authentic content and real buy-in
- Performance-Driven Incentives
- Rather than flat-fee posts, which can be hit or miss, PHX rewarded athletes on a pay-per-view model.
- This ensured budget flowed to content that actually performed, delivering efficient CPMs and incentivizing athletes to create posts that would perform organically.
- High performers reactivated for second posts, doubling down on proven winners
- Retail Tie-Ins
- University of Cincinnati athletes documented themselves shopping for PHX at Kroger
- Leveraged local celebrity status to connect online buzz with in-store traffic
The Results
In just 6 weeks, the PHX x MarketPryce campaign delivered:
- 2.7M+ impressions (vs. 2M goal)
- 350+ unique content assets with rights to repurpose (hype edits, taste tests, GRWMs, day-in-the-life, ASMR, teammate gifting)
- 100K likes, 2.7K comments, 599 shares
- Retail integration with Kroger through authentic athlete-led content
What PHX Said
“Working with MarketPryce has been a game changer for PHX. Jason is the ultimate team player—he jumped right in and helped us create a flood of new content to support our launch. He’s creative, passionate, and goes above and beyond to make sure athletes not only earn money through NIL deals but also learn the business side of building their personal brands. You can tell he genuinely cares about the people he works with. We’d highly recommend giving Jason a call—he’s sharp, reliable, and just a genuinely good guy to have in your corner.”— McKinley Stephens, Head of Marketing at PHX
"As a new brand trying to establish ourselves in this competitive market, Jason didn't just hand us a cookie-cutter approach—he actually took the time to educate us on the NIL landscape, walked us through proven strategies, and developed a customized plan that aligned perfectly with our budget and objectives. The guy absolutely delivered—he connected us with athletes who were authentic brand matches, and the content they produced exceeded our expectations. Thanks Jason! — Maggie Durnien, Digital Brand Manager, Drink PHX
“Among all of our partners, NIL content has been such a North Star for us — even compared to Barstool and production companies. The athlete content is outperforming, because it’s real and relatable.” — Maggie Durnien, Digital Brand Manager, Drink PHX
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