Waterloo Sparkling Water has named Dentsu Creative as its social agency of record following a competitive review, Marketing Dive can exclusively share.
The nearly 10-year-old sparkling water brand enlisted the shop on the tails of launching two new flavors, Banana Berry Bliss and Melon Medley, and bringing back fan-favorite Lemon Italian Ice as a year-round fixture. A “Wake Up With Waterloo” effort attached to the rollout was timed to the start of 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics earlier this month, seeking to connect with consumers tuning in early to catch the event’s coverage.
Waterloo, which boasts better-for-you ingredients and promotes its products as good mocktail mixers, is also in the midst of preparing limited-time offerings for the spring and summer seasons. The privately held beverage marketer has previously worked with social agencies, but not at this scale or depth of strategic partnership, and was looking for a marketing services provider that could collaborate closely with its public relations AOR, Lippe Taylor.
“For us, it’s scoping from awareness to conversion to loyalty,” said Waterloo CMO Kathy Maurella, who joined the company in 2020. “At the same time, let’s be honest, social is a national awareness driver … It’s not a regional play. It’s not a by-retailer play. It’s a true national play.”
Waterloo joins a growing number of CPG brands that are expanding their focus on social-first marketing to account for changing media consumption habits. Dentsu Creative has also been digging deeper into this area, having garnered positive attention for helping develop more distinctive online personalities for brands like Mondelēz’s Nutter Butter. The network’s social portfolio has recently added brands including MacroFactor, Tropicana Brands Group brands and i-Health brands AZO and Culturelle.
“We have seen a lot more potential clients looking for just social AOR,” said Tony Wood, senior vice president and head of social marketing and strategy at Dentsu Creative. “For Waterloo specifically, I like to think of us as embedded with their team. It isn’t that traditional agency-client relationship.”
A growing presence
Waterloo, which was founded in 2017, currently has 10% household penetration in the U.S., according to Maurella. The brand is seeking to continue to drive new customer momentum while shoring up loyalty with existing buyers. One advantage Waterloo wields in the sparkling water category is a brand ethos, “Water Down Nothing,” that will help guide its social marketing approach under Dentsu Creative, Wood explained.
“This is such a competitive category. It is, for the large part, pretty undifferentiated,” Wood added. “The fact that Waterloo had this notion of ‘Water Down Nothing’ — it’s ideal. It hits at an emotion and it will act as a strong filter to guide us in how the brand behaves.”
Waterloo and Dentsu will focus on fostering a sense of community, interacting with established fans of the brand and also seeking out “lateral groups” with passion points aligned with the “Water Down Nothing” mantra. Waterloo in the past few weeks has seen up to six times more total social engagements by participating in discussions outside of its owned channels, Wood said, while noting that owned still represents a “digital front door” to the brand.
In an era where CMOs have acknowledged that content production demands for social are soaring, Waterloo is trying to keep sights set on quality interactions versus sheer volume.
“We are prioritizing community and participation over content publishing. Community is where trust is formed. We know that discoverability is still going to be algorithmic, but choice still has to be earned,” said Wood. “I think that a lot of the competition is really distracted programming their own feeds, whereas Waterloo actually does have fans.”
