From Icon to Ignorance

So, Agua Picante, is a beloved sparkling mineral water with a spicy kick. It had been a sensation in the United States for over a decade. Born out of rich natural springs in Mexico, its bold bubbles and grassroots marketing turned it into an icon of authenticity. The brand thrived, not just because of its taste, but because it resonated with a community of adventurous, health-conscious consumers who craved something different. The original marketing team knew the brand's essence and lived it. They built Agua Picante into a community-driven, rebellious, and passionate movement.

But that all changed when Big Corn Syrup, a corporate conglomerate in the beverage world, bought Agua Picante.

After a few years, the original marketing team who created the iconic brand was replaced by a group of corporate ladder climbers with MBAs and zero connection to the brand's soul. Agua Picante wasn't a cultural staple to them—it was just another product to squeeze profits from. Worse, they began slapping the Agua Picante name on unrelated, mass-produced products: bland spiked drinks, drink mixers, even a knock-off version of a competitor's lightly flavored sparkling tap water in a can that made the brand's core fans cringe.

None of the new products actually have any real Agua Picante Natural Sparkling Mineral Water in them, they were simply ripping off the name an putting it on inferior products to dupe the public into separating with their cash, thinking they were buying products with real Agua Picante in them, when in reality, it was nothing more than tap water with carbonation added.

Big Corn Syrup had no idea they were already well into the process of destroying the very brand they bought.

Agencies in Chaos

As the new corporate marketing team settled in, they did what any large conglomerate would do—they outsourced. Instead of one unified vision, they handed the Agua Picante brand over to a maze of marketing agencies, each with its own agenda. These agencies weren't scrappy creatives who understood the brand's origins—they were firms with bloated budgets, no creative imagination, and endless bureaucracy.

Meetings were unproductive and stretched for hours. Campaign ideas were torn apart and redone a dozen times. ...And no one on the zoom calls could remember the last time they even drank an Agua Picante. The original community-driven approach was long forgotten. The new campaigns were overly polished, over budget, and painfully slow to launch. What used to take the original team weeks, sometimes even days to produce now dragged on for months. And when the campaigns finally hit the market, they bombed.

But the worst was yet to come. The Big Corn Syrup marketing team decided it was time to get "hip"—they were going to launch Agua Picante on TikTok.

TikTok Tango – Dancing in the Wrong Direction

"I think we should do a dance challenge," said Karen, the new VP of marketing, during a strategy meeting. Her idea was met with enthusiastic nods from the room of yes-men, middle-managers, and executives who hadn't spent a minute on TikTok.

The new marketing team, stuck in the 2020 playbook left behind by the previous team that wrote the brand's bluebook and has not updated it since their departure, still saw TikTok as a dancing app for teenagers. They had no idea that political campaigns, other major global brands, and businesses of every size and type had already evolved beyond the dance craze. TikTok had become a creative powerhouse where storytelling, authenticity, and community engagement ruled.

The fresh corporate marketing team partnered with an agency that had previously worked with several big soda brands for Big Corn Syrup. The result? A series of lifeless, overly staged dance videos featuring influencers who didn't even drink Agua Picante themselves. The videos were polished but soulless, missing the brand's fiery personality and unique edge.

The views trickled in and engagement was abysmal. The very few comments posted were brutal.

“This is what happens when your favorite brand is ruined by Big Corn Syrup!” one person posted.

“What happened to the real Agua Picante?" one user asked.

"This looks like every other boring soda," another wrote.

The marketing team was baffled. "But we did everything right!" Karen protested. "We hired influencers. We made them dance!"

They missed the bigger picture: TikTok wasn't about the brand anymore. It was about the audience. And Agua Picante had lost touch with the people who loved it most.

Demographics, Ignored

The team kept doubling down on their misguided strategy as the months went by. Karen was convinced that TikTok was still dominated by teenagers, so all their content targeted 18 to 21-year-olds. What they didn't realize was that TikTok's demographics had shifted dramatically since 2020. By 2024, TikTok had a massive audience of people in their 30s, 40s, and beyond—many of whom were the exact same fans who had been loyal to Agua Picante for years.

Not only was Agua Picante’s content not resonating with the new, younger audience they were pursuing, but they had completely lost touch with the previously loyal fans that the brand had amassed over the last decade.

Carlos, a junior marketer who had been with the original team, tried to speak up.

"TikTok's audience is older now, and they're looking for authentic, creative content. We should be telling the story of Agua Picante's origins or showing real people enjoying the water in their everyday lives," he suggested.

But his advice fell on deaf ears.

"No!” Karen replied. "We're sticking to the dance challenge. It's what works."

Except—it didn't. The audience they needed wasn't watching dance videos. They wanted real stories, real connections, and content that spoke TO them, not at them.

Livestreams? Never Heard of Them

Agua Picante had a golden opportunity to engage with its audience through TikTok's livestreaming feature, which TikTok aggressively promoted. Brands that used livestreams saw their reach skyrocket, and they had the potential to appear on the coveted For You page.

Imagine a live session where fans could chat with the brand's team, learn how to make spicy cocktails with Agua Picante and up and coming bartenders, or even get exclusive first access to new flavors. It could have been a direct line to the brand's most loyal fans.

But the Big Corn Syrup team? They didn't have the time or vision for that.

"Livestreams are too risky. ...And legal won't approve them. Let's stick to pre-recorded videos where we can control the message," Karen insisted.

The result? Missed opportunities, as smaller brands and niche creators dominated the TikTok livestream space, building loyal communities and driving sales in real-time.

Agua Picante was nowhere to be found.

The 6-Minute "TV Show" Misfire

In another misguided attempt to boost their presence, based upon a conversation Karen half-heard at a marketing conference, the marketing team decided to experiment with longer video content. TikTok recently encouraged creators to post videos longer than one minute, emphasizing storytelling and depth. The problem here: Karen only heard the “longer videos” part and missed the “storytelling and depth” part.

So instead of using this as a chance to tell Agua Picante's story -- the fiery origin of its volcanic spring water, the passion behind the brand, the unique cultural experience of Mexico -- the new team missed the mark completely. They produced a couple of bloated 6-minute ads in the guise of a traditional television talk/variety show featuring a half-baked cooking segment, a music segment which gave an artist less than 30 seconds to play the beginning of his new single, and scripted actors performing poorly written comedy bits and talking about the "refreshing taste" of Agua Picante’s new product line of barely flavored sparkling tap water in a can in a cartoonishly colored studio setting.

It was content creation with no heart, and TikTok's audience saw right through it. But that didn’t stop the production agency from running out and submitting it for some fake industry awards that they could brag about later on LinkedIn, the world’s largest circle-jerk.

Meanwhile, smaller brands were producing rich, engaging videos that felt like mini-documentaries, keeping viewers glued to their screens. How were Agua Picante's 6-minute clips doing? The first one was skipped in seconds by viewers and while Agua Picante released a “second episode,” the team was too embarrassed to even bother promoting it to their followers on LinkedIn.

Missing the TikTok Shop Boat

Then came the final nail in the coffin—TikTok Shop. Agua Picante's corporate overlords at Big Corn Syrup were stuck in the old model of sending customers to an external website to purchase their products from third-party vendors with no connection to the brand. They ignored TikTok's built-in e-commerce tools that allowed users to purchase directly from the platform without leaving the app.

"Why should we bother with that?" Karen asked. "People will go to our partner websites if they want to buy online.”

Except they didn't. TikTok was pushing its e-commerce tools harder than ever. Brands that embraced TikTok Shop were selling out products during livestreams, using affiliate creators to push sales, and thriving in a way that Agua Picante couldn't even fathom.

While competitors flourished with seamless in-app purchases, Agua Picante was stuck in the past, making its customers jump through hoops just to buy a bottle of water.

A Lesson for Brands Everywhere

As months passed, the decline of Agua Picante under Big Corn Syrup's leadership was painfully obvious. Loyal fans drifted away, sales stagnated, and the brand's presence on TikTok, and social media in general, became a joke.

Now, this story isn't just about Agua Picante -- it's a cautionary tale for every food and beverage brand, large or small, looking to navigate the tricky waters of social media marketing in 2024 and 2025.

The lesson? TikTok isn't a platform where traditional, cookie-cutter marketing works. It's a place where authenticity, creativity, and community rule. Brands that don't evolve with the platform will be left behind, no matter how iconic they once were.

Don't be like Big Corn Syrup. Don't lose the heart of your brand by relying on old corporate strategies that don't resonate with your brand’s core audience.

In the end, TikTok didn’t fail Agua Picante. What failed them was Big Corn Syrup’s ladder-climbing, job-hopping marketing gypsies -- completely out of touch with the people who actually loved the brand. And they paid the price for it. They had one job when they took over from the previous team: 'Don’t f*ch it up.' Well, you can decide if they pulled that off.

This was a business fable. I hope you enjoyed it and learned a little something.

I am an Ad-Age, Emmy, Shorty, Telly, and Webby Award-Winning Social Media Strategist and Content Creator specializing in outdoor lifestyle, adventure, travel, and recreation brands. With over a decade of experience, I excel at amplifying voices in the outdoor lifestyle and adventure space through strategic storytelling. My expertise lies in creating compelling content that resonates with audiences, building strong online communities, and driving the success of numerous outdoor brands and television series.