Nuun — Nestlé · Sports hydration CPG · Influencer marketing & UGC · 2026
How Nuun moved from legacy performance to a creator-led go-to-market
When creator content earns most of the upper-funnel budget, the media plan has changed shape, not just its creative.
60%+
of top-of-funnel budget
captured by creator content
The results, up top — every number is in the strip below
60%+
TOFU budget capture
creator content earned it
50+
creator activations
volume enough to compete
30%+
lift in engagement metrics
under the new model
10+
brand relationships
coordinated programme
GTM shift
legacy to creator-led
model change, not asset change
01 — The challenge
A legacy performance model that had stopped growing.
Nuun, inside Nestlé, was running a conventional performance model across more than ten NHS-adjacent brand relationships and needed a different approach to social acquisition.
Legacy models optimise what already exists. They rarely find what is next.
“We were optimising the same set of assets to death. The performance floor kept holding and the ceiling never moved.”
So the go-to-market was rebuilt around creators rather than around media optimisation.
02 — Our approach
50+ creator activations replacing legacy performance assets.
More than fifty creator activations produced the volume and variety needed for creator content to compete for budget on merit rather than as a test line.
It won: creator content captured over 60% of top-of-funnel budget, and engagement metrics lifted more than 30%.
03 — What we did
What the campaign actually consisted of.
The working parts behind the Nuun — Nestlé numbers above.
50+ creator activations
Enough to compete for budget
Activation volume let creator content earn spend rather than be allocated it.
Creator asset grid
10+ brand relationships
Coordinated, not siloed
The programme ran across more than ten brand relationships.
Reported programme scope
60%+ TOFU capture
Budget followed performance
Creator content took the majority of top-of-funnel budget.
Reported spend distribution
Engagement up 30%+
The audience responded
Engagement metrics lifted more than 30% under the new model.
Reported engagement metrics
The stack we ran it on
Meta Ads Manager
Paid social
TikTok Ads Manager
Paid social
Creator sourcing
Casting
Spark Ads & whitelisting
Amplification
Frame.io
Creative review
Canva
Creative
GA4
Analytics
Looker Studio
Dashboards
“Web Tonic did in six weeks what our last two agencies couldn't in a year — and for the first time we could see every dollar of it”
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