It started out as a locker-room spitballing session, a couple of Ivy League football players trying to solve for hydration.
Sunday, more than a decade and many late nights and early mornings later, Garrett Waggoner and Andy Gay’s brainchild will be unveiled on the biggest commercial gridiron of them all.
The co-founders of Cirkul will enjoy a significant full circle moment, when a 30-second spot for their flavored water will air during the Super Bowl.
It’s a big game debut rich in symbolism: Cirkul distributed its first product in 2018, just a few years after Waggoner was parking cars in between his two seasons playing football for Winnipeg of the CFL and Gay was selling shoes, both hoping to gain a foothold with investors to provide a proof of concept.
By 2022, after multiple investment rounds, Cirkul exceeded a $1 billion valuation.
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And after the brand enjoyed a boost from TikTok virality and gained a foothold at Walmart and other massive distributors, the group felt it was time to strike on Super Sunday, symbolically completing a dizzying rise.
“Even a couple-few years ago,” says Waggoner, “Andy and I were in the warehouse, packing boxes.
“To be on the biggest stage, yeah, it’s pretty humbling.”
They’re scarcely going it alone.
Thanks in part to Cirkul chief marketing officer Steve Battista, the group reeled in director Peter Berg, well-known cinematically but also a veteran of multiple long-form Super Bowl commercials for the NFL.
And to connect with the audience, the crew brought aboard comedian and former ‘Pitch Perfect’ star Adam DeVine, cast opposite his wife, actress Chloe Bridges, aiming to execute a vision the founders concocted over the long haul.
“A lot of early mornings, a lot of 3 a.m., 4 a.m. brainstorming sessions,” says Gay. “We had a lot of ideas we wanted to fit in and (Battista) kept banging us on the head, saying, ‘Guys, it’s 30 seconds, 30 seconds.”
They were in good hands.
‘Poetry in motion’
Berg, the creative force behind both the ‘Friday Night Lights’ movie and celebrated TV series, cut his commercial teeth by helming a pair of two-minute Super Bowl spots for the NFL; he’ll have a third featured in this year’s game.
Yet Cirkul – not even a decade old – presented a significant challenge that the hoary NFL didn’t: Connecting a nascent product with a largely unknowing audience.
“They had all the accompanying anxiety that comes with trying to launch a new product and go all in on a Super Bowl spot,” Berg said of the Cirkul gang. “You knew they were making a pretty large commitment and I wanted to help them take that quite seriously.
“The biggest challenge was helping them get through the pressure of the moment. It’s a huge commitment financially and as far as reputation goes, you can’t walk it back. You’re proclaiming something is legit, on the biggest stage in the world.
“People are maybe a little tense. You can feel the pressure. That’s what I like about Super Bowl spots – everybody’s sitting up a little straighter and breathing a little shorter.”
They were certainly all ears.
Waggoner was a hard-hitting safety at Dartmouth, got a brief look in Detroit Lions camp and then played two seasons for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Gay was a reserve quarterback at Dartmouth and both, naturally, were big fans of Berg’s football work on the big and small screen.
They were relatively awestruck seeing his handiwork up close.
“It was our first time being on set with someone of his caliber,” says Gay. “He’d throw out suggestions or tweaks or ideas and you’d be like, ‘Oh, let’s see how it goes,’ and it would just be perfect, and bring the entire spot to life, and get so much more out of the limited time and scenes we have to play with in that 30-second mark.”
Says Waggoner: ‘It was like seeing what one of the best quarterbacks of all time was like on the field. Small nuances, different tweaks, talking off-set to different talent. It was poetry in motion.”
Time for a ‘big bet’
Berg says in working with emerging products like Cirkul, “you have to let the brand land.” That’s been a near decadelong process for a product that touts sustainability and health, along with the consumer’s freedom to dial up the flavor in their water.
Now, thanks in no small part to shrewd online marketing, Cirkul is in Walmart and Target, available on Amazon, credible with young consumers.
Waggoner says Cirkul’s aided brand awareness – or the measure of how many people can recognize a brand when prompted – is just 20%. Yet its widespread availability made now the time to strike.
“At this point in our life cycle, it makes sense to make a big bet,” he says. “We’re fully widely distributed now, in all the places where customers would think about shopping.”
The group is confident in Sunday’s final product, and will connect what they believe is a unique product with a similarly splashy spot.
“What we’ve got cooked up is something I don’t think people have ever seen before,” says Waggoner. “And we’re really excited to see how America reacts.”