5-hour ENERGY shots influencer campaign’s return on ad spend is more
than six times higher than average social media food campaigns

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–IRI^®, a global leader in innovative solutions and services
for consumer, retail and media companies, and Influential, a leading
artificial intelligence influencer technology, Social Intelligence firm
and IBM Watson developer partner, today announced the results of a
third-party study by IRI on behalf of Living Essentials LLC, the makers
of 5-hour ENERGY^® shots, that proves the power of using
social media influencers in consumer packaged goods marketing.

The campaign, which ran and was analyzed August through October 2018,
involved 15 Instagram posts promoting 5-hour ENERGY® shots by three
influencers who each attended a Dierks Bentley country music concert.
Influencers created and posted content before, during and after the show
promoting the official 5-hour ENERGY® sponsorship of Dierks Bentley and
the 2018 Mountain High Tour. Influencers were sourced via Influential’s
IBM Watson Technology, which selects the most appropriate influencers
via context (keyword usage) and the brand’s chosen Watson Personality
Insight Traits (this campaign included Excitement, Activity Level,
Friendliness and Cheerfulness).

The campaign drove a short-term return on ad spend of $6.11, which is
more than six times higher than the $0.92 average of all IRI measured
social media food campaigns. The campaign succeeded in generating an
incremental $1.2 million in sales.

The campaign had 22.9 million impressions, and the response was
positive. The sentiment of user-generated comments was 100 percent
positive or neutral.

“Foot traffic and sales attribution is the holy grail of influencer
marketing, so we are both proud and excited to have teamed up with IRI
to help make this possible for our clients,” said Ryan Detert, CEO of
Influential. “We appreciate the forward-thinking team at Living
Essentials for trusting us to execute this trailblazing new technology
with their products and we are happy with the results.”

“Influencer marketing is an incredibly valuable tool that brings word of
mouth to life in today’s digital world,” said Nishat Mehta, president of
the IRI Media Center of Excellence. “Innovative campaigns like these
allow marketers to go beyond basic measurements like post engagement and
impressions and dive into more sophisticated metrics like sales lift,
return on ad spend and halo effects — which paint a true picture of just
how valuable influencer marketing can be for the CPG industry.”

About the IRI Partner Ecosystem

IRI fundamentally believes that delivering differentiated growth for
clients requires deep, highly integrated partnering with a variety of
best-of-breed companies. As such, IRI works closely with a broad range
of industry leaders across multiple industries and sectors to create
innovative joint solutions, services and access to capabilities to help
its clients more effectively collaborate and compete in their various
markets and exceed their growth objectives. IRI is committed to its
partnership philosophy and continues to actively enhance its open
ecosystem of partners through alliances, joint ventures, acquisitions
and affiliations. The IRI Partner Ecosystem includes such leading
companies as 84.51°, Adobe, The Boston Consulting Group,
Clavis Insights, comScore, Data Plus Math, Edison, Experian, GfK,
Gigwalk, Google, Ipsos, Jumpshot, Mastercard Advisors, MaxPoint, MFour,
Omnicom, One Click Retail, Oracle, Pinterest, Research Now/SSI,
Simulmedia, SPINS, Univision, Viant and others.

About IRI

IRI is a leading provider of big data, predictive analytics and
forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations,
retailers, financial services and media companies grow their businesses.
A confluence of major external events — a change in consumer buying
habits, big data coming into its own, advanced analytics and
personalized consumer activation — is leading to a seismic shift in
drivers of success in all industries. With the largest repository of
purchase, media, social, causal and loyalty data, all integrated on an
on-demand, cloud-based technology platform, IRI is empowering the
personalization revolution, helping to guide its more than 5,000 clients
around the world in their quests to remain relentlessly relevant,
capture market share, connect with consumers, collaborate with key
constituents and deliver market-leading growth. For more information,
visit www.iriworldwide.com.

About Influential

Influential is an AI social data and conversion technology, as well as a
developer partner of IBM Watson and a Facebook marketing partner.
Utilizing a network of over 300,000 social media influencers as a tactic
for distribution, Influential runs both native and paid campaigns on
Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube for Fortune 500
brands including Walmart, McDonald’s, Pepsi, Nestlé, General Mills,
Toyota, Samsung, Sony Pictures and many more. Influential is the only
company that can track deterministic one-to-one in-store foot traffic
and sales attribution from paid influencer posts, as well as TV tune-in
lift and attribution. Influential is a strategic partner of WME and
Oracle’s Moat and has offices in Beverly Hills, New York City and Las
Vegas. (www.influential.co)

About 5-hour ENERGY^®

5-hour ENERGY^® is a liquid energy shot that provides a
feeling of energy and alertness that lasts for hours. It contains a
blend of B vitamins and amino acids, zero sugar, four calories and
caffeine comparable to a cup of the leading premium coffee. Extra
Strength 5-hour ENERGY^® shots contain caffeine comparable to
12 ounces of the leading premium coffee. It is available at retail
outlets in the United States and Canada.

Contacts

IRI Contact:
Shelley Hughes
Email: [email protected]
Phone:
+1 312.474.3675

Influential Contact:
Chris Detert
Email:
[email protected]