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Americans love drinking, but apparently we will do just about anything to avoid tap water. The soft beverage shelves are overwhelmed with new entrants and ideas - like non-alcoholic "hop-infused water." We explore with category pioneer HOP WTR and its VP of Marketing and Innovation Ryan Haggerty the challenge of explaining an unfamiliar brand and an unknown category in ways that break through market clutter.

Brand partnering has been a key theme recently at MediaPost's Insider Summits. As customer acquisition costs soar, it makes sense that companies try to draft off of one another's existing customer bases. In fact a few curious co-brand combos have been hatched at our retreats. One of them aligned the sleep, wellness and beauty brand Overnight Beauty, with the vitamin and supplements company OLLY.

A lot of brands use Super Bowl advertising to launch a new brand or campaign push. In the case of Ferrara's Nerds Gummy Clusters, however, a Super Bowl ad this year culminated a remarkable business growth story that started several years ago at the grass roots of candy fandom.

The Pure Leaf iced tea brand wants to make a believer of me and you. A believer that a zero sugar version of Pure Leaf can still carry the brand's signature brewed tea, subtly sweet flavor. Pure Leaf Zero Sugar Sweet Tea launches this week with an artful campaign that channels both the recent Ghostbusters movie release and old school X-Files fandom. The "Unbelieveably Sweet Files" campaign leads with a video starring Emily Alyn Lind and Celeste O'Connor, who happen to be co-starring in last weekend's box office winner Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Unlike many other drink brands, Pepsico's Pure Leaf …

It's not just about getting missing buttons replaced and taking that pet hair-infested suit jacket out for a refresh. ZIPS Cleaners is a national franchise of dry cleaners that hopes to break out of the narrow range of services associated with the category. We spoke with CMO Mary Ann Donaghy this week about how a new generation of consumers is looking for someone else to do their laundry, among other chores. It turns out that sending customers a drop-off laundry bag is often more effective just advertising new services.

When Dave's Hot Chicken outlets open in a new city, it feels more like a blockbuster movie premiere or iPhone launch days, circa 2013. Earned media buzzes for weeks, and long lines form early. Which raises a lot of good-to-have marketing questions about how a brand leans into and maintains cult status as it aspires to expand quickly. And how does it maintain that buzz well after launch?

New digital features are useless to your brand unless patients are actually using them. On MediaPost's recent Brand Insider Summit: Pharma & Health, Rite Aid's Dustin Humphreys shared how the company built a business case around digital adoption and how to measure utilization. By focusing on usage, not just features, the company has learned how to bend the adoption curve, so that "digitization" of the user base is adding real value to patient experience and brand investment

Q Mixers can be found in thousands of outlets nationwide. It promises to upgrade the typical flat and overly sweet drink mixer with better ingredients and more fizz. But of course, mixers typically are last minute add-on, low-consideration purchase. The brand needs to be at the point of inspiration and sale, but it also has a specific story to tell. Which is one of the problems Nick Wooten, their CMO tries to solve in part with an evolved out of home ad strategy