00:00Nós não vemos ninguém como competidores.
00:02Nós estávamos no hype, então nós estávamos virar.
00:04Agora estamos em um hábit de construção.
00:06Isso é uma inovação.
00:07Bem-vindo ao The Big Question,
00:16a série de Euronews onde falamos algumas das maiores nomes do negócio.
00:20E hoje não é diferente.
00:22Eu sou a Cristina Kentz, a CEO da AirUp.
00:26Cristina, muito obrigado por nos no The Big Question.
00:28Thank you so much for having me.
00:30Very excited to be here today with you.
00:32Now, AirUp produces water bottles,
00:34which you sent to create essentially the perception of flavor
00:39by putting the interchangeable pods in the top of the bottle.
00:43And this product, Cristina, went viral, didn't it?
00:46I saw that it racked up billions of views on TikTok and the like,
00:51which is amazing.
00:52So can you tell us what really drove that explosion?
00:55I think there are three steps to virality,
00:59to go into a positive area.
01:01When you look at a society problem,
01:03like, for example, hydration,
01:05the fact that we need to drink more water,
01:07it becomes a topic that people want to talk.
01:09So it has a really good base for virality.
01:12At the beginning, it went as a hype.
01:14And, of course, that surprises everyone
01:15because this is a product that came from founders
01:19that were inherently engineers.
01:22And scent taste actually comes from neuroscience,
01:24comes from a true innovation.
01:26So the fact that we can flavor water
01:28in a way that has no sugar, no artificial,
01:32so it's basically scent taste.
01:34You're able to perceive the taste
01:35even though you're just drinking pure water.
01:37That becomes the magic of the system.
01:40So the sum of good insight,
01:42a good product,
01:43and a good conversation,
01:44that makes it viral.
01:46And now the part that we are building in
01:48is the habit.
01:55And the company launched in Germany in 2019.
01:59And I read that within the first six weeks,
02:02it sold 80,000 units of the water bottles.
02:06Now take me back to the beginning
02:08and where the whole idea came from.
02:12It has a beautiful story.
02:14There were a bunch of founders.
02:15We have five founders.
02:16And everything started in a university
02:19lab.
02:20It was an end-of-year project.
02:22And the project was based on neuroscience.
02:25They were looking at how 80% of taste
02:28comes retronasal.
02:30They thought about different applications
02:31and they came up with the idea of water.
02:35So when they presented the project,
02:36very soon they were able to get back in
02:39and to build up a company.
02:40So the stories incredibly found the lead.
02:43And what is very nice is that that was created,
02:46as you're saying, about six years ago.
02:48But the founders are still in the company.
02:51This is one of the reasons why I was attracted
02:53to the company.
02:54When I met the founders and I saw their authenticity
02:57and the authenticity of the product
02:59and the innovation,
03:01it felt like a very wholesome place to be.
03:03And working with them is super fun.
03:05The bottles, of course,
03:07they get people through the door,
03:08but the pods are what bring them back,
03:11essentially,
03:11because you need the pods,
03:12the interchangeable pods,
03:13to put at the top of the water bottle
03:14to smell the flavour for the water.
03:17So is the real Air App business the bottle
03:19or would you say it's the recurring revenue pod business?
03:23I think it's both.
03:24And when you look at the part of the journey we're at,
03:27the bottle, of course, opens the conversation.
03:29And then what we have done
03:31is that the pods now are available in many places.
03:34Now we have 15,000 points of sale.
03:38We actually opened up a lot of the retail distribution
03:40to make sure that there was no friction
03:43in terms of when you wanted to change the pod,
03:45that there was availability.
03:46It's a little bit like when you think about a gym.
03:49We all know that being healthy is going to a gym,
03:52but if you have to take a bus
03:53and you have to take a walk
03:54a kilometre to get to your gym,
03:57you won't make it.
03:58And seemingly, when you get to the gym,
03:59it has to be a nice experience.
04:01So we know that the repeat comes from both,
04:03the nice experience of the bottle
04:05and also the accessibility of the pods.
04:08And do you know what percentage of customers
04:10come back and buy the pods?
04:11The business has sold now 50 million bottles
04:14and we are above 200 million pods.
04:16So it is working.
04:18And what we can see is that
04:20people who really stick to the franchise
04:22through clinical studies,
04:24we see that they drink more water.
04:25So the product is proving itself.
04:28And now, as I was saying before,
04:30we were on the hype,
04:31then we were viral.
04:32Now we are in the habit building.
04:34The habit building is a little bit slower
04:35in the sense that we need to get people
04:38adopting the system day after day
04:41for the hydration promise to be true.
04:43You need to continue coming back, coming back.
04:45And that is the part that we are vested now
04:47on really creating habits.
04:48And Christina, when it comes to competition,
04:50your biggest competitor,
04:52it isn't necessarily Coca-Cola, for example.
04:54It's the glass of tap water that costs nothing.
04:57So what's your answer to that?
04:58I think we have our own lane.
04:59We have created a new category.
05:01We don't see anyone as competitors.
05:04And not because we are arrogant or anything like that.
05:07It's just basically we created something new,
05:09which is the ability to give you a system
05:11that makes you enjoy water.
05:13We exist to help humans drink more water.
05:16And we do it in a way that there's no sugars,
05:19no artificials,
05:20just pure water with a hint of flavour,
05:22and that gives you the enjoyment.
05:23And Christina,
05:24AirUp was founded, as we talked about,
05:26and is still headquartered in Munich.
05:29You've also expanded into the US.
05:31But what's fundamentally different,
05:33would you say,
05:34in trying to grow AirUp on the continent,
05:36here in Europe, versus the US?
05:39We actually have gone into the US
05:41in two different ways.
05:43We went the blockbuster way,
05:45which is you get in,
05:46you go everywhere,
05:47you try to do nationwide distribution.
05:49The reality is that there's not one US.
05:52There are many USes,
05:53and US is a very vast territory.
05:56And also lately,
05:57it's been harder with the tariffs and everything.
06:00So what we've done is change our approach.
06:03And instead of going all in,
06:05we are now launching in Boston.
06:07We're going to win in a smaller footprint,
06:10create a prosumers,
06:11and then expand from that.
06:13It is very different to launch in the US
06:15than to launch in France, for example.
06:18You're a CEO that's worked with
06:20lots of major brands, Christina.
06:22Has, in those internal conversations
06:24that you have with other CEOs,
06:27has the tariffs really taken you all by surprise?
06:29And every day, is it sort of,
06:31OK, what's happening today?
06:33Is it difficult to strategise with the business?
06:35Yeah, of course it is.
06:36It has brought many business
06:39into a very difficult place of planning.
06:41Not only because of the sheer tariffs,
06:44also because of the changes within the tariffs.
06:46The promises of returning the money,
06:48then the different change of tariff setting.
06:50And as you know,
06:51you couldn't bank on anything.
06:52Like one day was one thing for one country,
06:54the other day was another thing for another country.
06:56So I think it's been for CEOs
06:58who are manufacturing in Europe
07:00and they want to sell in the US,
07:03it's been an interesting time.
07:05Yeah, and what's next for AirUp?
07:07What can we look forward to next?
07:10Next for AirUp is we are launching a new product.
07:12We are very actively seek for feedback
07:14and we are always seeing ongoing improvements on the product.
07:18The product we are launching now
07:19has a few capabilities
07:21that have been massively improved.
07:23Now we can put sparkling water,
07:26which is, if you know,
07:27like in some countries like Germany,
07:29unless you can put a sparkling water,
07:31the habit of the still water is not there.
07:33So for us to be able to have a sparkling water
07:35was very important.
07:36And this is our next big thing.
07:39Well, Christina, best of luck
07:41with the launch of the new product.
07:42It's been really fascinating to talk to you.
07:45So thank you very much for sharing your insights
07:47and thank you for joining us on The Big Question.
07:49Thank you.
07:50Thank you.
07:50Thank you.
07:53Thank you.
07:53Thank you.
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