This $5 cowboy hat is designed to smuggle a secret soda (or beer)

Marketing stunts tend to range from the banal to the broadly clever—but rarely do they border on the chaotically brilliant. 

Today, the beverage company Evolution Fresh is debuting a 10-gallon hat designed to smuggle 12-ounce cans of its new Real Fruit Soda (or really any beverage of your choosing) into movie theaters and concert venues where BYO is verboten. And you know what? Contrary to most gimmicks, it’s a delightfully offbeat and utilitarian flex that underscores the heart of its product.

Evolution Fresh released the line last June, and the better-for-you soda category has only boomed in the months since, with Coke unveiling Simply Pop and Pepsi buying Poppi for nearly $2 billion. Molly White, CMO of Generous Brands (Evolution Fresh’s parent company), wrote in an email exchange that Real Fruit Soda is currently the No. 2 refrigerated alt-soda brand next to category leader Olipop, with some 3.6 million cans sold and a presence in 11,000 stores.

Now, Evolution Fresh’s smuggling campaign is seeking to Trojan Horse its product into all those other places synonymous with traditional soda.

“Today’s consumers want that fizzy, refreshing hit without the artificial ingredients and sugar overload,” White wrote. “Movie theaters, in particular, felt like the perfect battleground, where consumers often feel forced to choose between nostalgia and nutrition. Our solution? A playful act of defiance.”

Partnering with BSSP on the campaign, Evolution Fresh explored a variety of smuggling vessels before settling on the cowboy hat—which, White notes, dovetails with the recent surge in Western wear. The hats hail from Two Roads, and a prop company designed a custom-fit foam compartment to stash a can securely into the top of them.

They cost only $5 each and will be available while supplies last right here—but don’t let the marketing price point make you think they’re ephemeral landfill-filling dross, as these things tend to be. Rather, White detailed that the hats are made from 100% Australian wool, and the $5 price is a nod to the soda’s low sugar content of five grams.

Can I pull off a cowboy hat? Probably not. Can I attempt to in order to smuggle a more affordable beer into a concert? For $5, it’s time to saddle up and find out.

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