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Powerade turned free product trial into measurable brand growth by running two sampling engines in parallel—nationwide digital sampling redeemable across Indomaret, and on-the-ground sampling at high-traffic Jakarta locations—placing product directly in consumers’ hands at scale and, against an organic control group, nearly doubling top-of-mind recall in the isotonic category while lifting advocacy to near-perfect levels.
Winning an Isotonic Category Where Trial Beats Persuasion
In a category where consumers reach for the brand they already trust, Powerade entered as a challenger sitting nearly level with the incumbent in top-of-mind recall. Argument alone would not close that gap—physical experience would. So Powerade built a dual sampling strategy: a digital journey that let consumers claim a free bottle on their phone and collect it at their nearest Indomaret, and an on-the-ground presence at four high-footfall Jakarta locations where product was placed directly into the hands of people already in motion. Both routes led to the same outcome—a bottle consumed, a preference formed—while a mini-survey and control-group study measured exactly what that first taste changed.
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Convert product trial into lasting brand preference
Powerade set out to exceed an ambitious national sampling target while proving trial does more than move units. The brand wanted to quantify whether getting a bottle into someone’s hand measurably shifted recall, familiarity, advocacy, and repurchase intent against an organic baseline—and to learn which channels, locations, variants, and audiences convert sampling into genuine consideration, so future investment could be aimed with precision.
A dual sampling engine pairing nationwide digital claim-to-store redemption with on-the-ground activation at high-traffic urban locations.
Trial at scale converting into category-leading recall and advocacy
The campaign exceeded its national redemption target and placed free product in the hands of nearly 96,000 consumers across both sampling routes, with digital sampling converting the overwhelming majority of claimed coupons into verified Indomaret pickups and on-the-ground activation exceeding its bottle targets at every location. The control-group study confirmed the deeper result: participants nearly doubled their top-of-mind recall of Powerade in the isotonic category—overtaking the incumbent leader—while awareness, familiarity, advocacy, and repurchase intent all rose to near-universal levels.
These results prove that sampling is not a cost of trial but an investment in preference, provided the mechanic is frictionless and the outcome is measured. Powerade closes the quarter with products in the market, a validated dual-route sampling model, and hard evidence that a single bottle in hand can move a brand from contender to category front-runner.
