Trip stepped up to the major leagues this week as the functional drinks sensation revealed Kendall Jenner is its latest high-profile investor and global ambassador.

Although no stranger to welcoming celebrity backers (singer Joe Jonas and Victoria’s Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio were among those who took part in a $40m investment round last year), signing up a member of the Kardashian clan is a serious statement of the brand’s intent.

One of the world’s highest-paid models, Jenner brings a social media following of 277 million on Instagram alone. That puts her profile just outside the platform’s top 10 users, trailing only a handful of global celebrities, including sisters Kylie Jenner and Kim and Khloé Kardashian.

She’ll be the face of Trip’s new global campaign, starring in TV commercials, on billboards and at the centre of social media content.

How much a celebrity endorsement actually ramps up sales for a brand is hard to measure, but Jenner’s impressive platform will mean Trip’s promise of delivering “calm in a can” will reach a much vaster audience, particularly in the brand’s target US market.

Global calm (in a can)

Trip’s journey in the UK is well known, but it has now trained its sights on global success. And that means cracking America. The brand has already made impressive inroads into the notoriously difficult market, and is now available in more than 20,000 stores across all the major retail chains, after just one full year of trading Stateside.

Group revenues are forecast to hit $200m (£148m) this year thanks to that exponential US growth and, with Jenner’s help, are targeted to double in 2027.

Although partnering with a celebrity can be winning formula in food & drink, from Beyoncé and Lemon Perfect to 50 Cent and Vitaminwater, there is no guarantee events will run smoothly.

Jenner has first-hand experience of just how wrong commercial campaigns can go, after her infamous Pepsi advert in 2017 was pulled by the US CPG giant after just one day following widespread criticism. The tone-deaf ad piggybacked on the Black Lives Matter movement and showed Jenner easing tensions at a protest march by handing a can of Pepsi to a police officer.

The resulting backlash highlighted the importance of authenticity when bringing the rich and famous together with a brand. A lesson the Trip team will likely have taken to heart.

Jenner claims to have been “obsessed” with Trip for a long time prior to striking this deal, which should go a long way to producing promotions that feel organic. Trip co-founder Olivia Ferdi is also keen to emphasise her new partner found the brand as a customer first and foremost, rather than via a pitch deck from a Hollywood agent.

The new advert is highly unlikely to be even a tiny bit controversial and will continue in the tone set by the recent Joe Jonas campaign, which saw the singer and actor surrounded by puppies or relaxing in a bubble bath with a rubber duck while enjoying a can of Trip.

Jenner will highlight how a calming hit of Trip’s ‘mindful blend’ fits into her routine and helps manage the pressures of daily life – even if those pressures are about as far removed from the experiences of an average person as it’s possible to imagine.

Trading equity for influence

The spiralling list of modern-day anxieties and stresses is clearly creating a growing demand for functional and wellness beverages, whether that is Trip itself or the caffeine-free energy drink fronted by Kim Kardashian (Update) or the electrolytes powder brand launched by Kylie Jenner (K20 by Sprinter) this year.

Ferdi recently told The Grocer that Trip was leading the creation of a new category in drinks, and that she expects calming drinks to one day rival energy in terms of category size.

Working with Jenner is another step in the right direction to bring that ambition to life.

But for a brand all about bringing calm to the chaos of everyday, it must have been a whirlwind of tense back-and-forth negotiations to secure Jenner as an investor. The amount of work behind the scenes to pull this deal off will have been tortuous, with sign-off likely needed from a huge Los Angeles entourage. It’s a massive coup for Ferdi and her husband and co-founder Daniel Khoury.

The size of Jenner’s stake in Trip is undisclosed, but sources in the City have confirmed the reality TV star did invest in the business (even if only a token sum). Full lucrative details can only be guessed at, but the deal likely involved a portion of equity traded over for influence as well. Either way, crucially, Jenner now has skin in the game.

Trip was valued at $300m during the most recent investment round at the end of 2025. And with Jenner properly incentivised – and having a can of Trip glued to her hand at every opportunity –  the company should easily hit a unicorn valuation of $1bn in the coming year.

The issue at that point is the pool of potential buyers able to cut a cheque of the appropriate size to swallow Trip shrinks to just a handful. Opting instead to go down the IPO route presents a million different hurdles. However, after landing Jenner as a partner, Trip’s founding team will feel there is nothing they can’t achieve. They just need to keep calm and carry on.

Topics