Why Poppi Was Forced To Rebrand After Its Shark Tank Appearance

If you're wondering how "Shark Tank"'s Mother Beverage is doing now, you may actually recognize it by another name these days. When Allison Ellsworth and her husband, Stephan, pitched her apple cider vinegar-based pop to the Sharks in 2018, they called it Mother. It was intended as a clever play on words, alluding to mother of vinegar, a byproduct of vinegar's fermentation process. The mother appears as a blob of threadlike proteins, bacteria, and enzymes in your vinegar bottle and can naturally develop over weeks or months. However, the Ellsworths ran into problems when it came to trademarking their chosen name.

Trademarking the name of a business gives the owners exclusive rights to it. This ensures that customers know which products come from a particular brand. It also prevents others from using the same name and muddying public perception. The Ellsworths were unable to trademark "Mother" because it could be considered a common word used to describe vinegar-based beverages that contain a mother. 

Rohan Oza, a recurring Shark with experience in the beverage sphere, struck a $400,000 deal with the Ellsworths for a 25% stake in their company during the show. He advised that they undergo a rebrand. And so they did, launching Poppi in 2020. They also opted to market it as a prebiotic soda rather than a beverage with apple cider vinegar to soften its image, and they figured the name Poppi was perfect for this new kind of soda.

As far as taste goes, Poppi is among the drinks the investors liked most on "Shark Tank" along with favorites such as Copa di Vino and Pricklee Cactus Water. Still, the packaging and name needed work. Unlike Mother Beverage, which had a much sterner image (glass bottles, muted tones, scripted font), Poppi came out the gate hip and bubbly. Featuring an aluminum can (which fared better with focus groups) and Pop Art-style color schemes and patterns, it demanded folks' attention and invited them in. The brand began to grow with its fresh new image, but it wasn't until Allison Ellsworth told her company's story in a 2021 video posted to TikTok that Poppi became an overnight internet sensation.

Ellsworth wanted the brand's social media presence to reflect its new approachable vibe in a way buyers would connect with. Unsatisfied with tired old platforms like Facebook, she did some guerilla marketing on TikTok (against her advisors wishes). She told her founding story and related her journey on "Shark Tank." Overnight, Poppi sold $100,000 on Amazon. Fast forward to 2025, and Poppi has recently made a deal with PepsiCo., which is buying the company for 1.95 billion. Talk about a successful rebrand!