Kool-Aid, a Summer Staple, Finds More Ad Success During Warmer Months

This week, Adweek's Robert Klara took a look at how Kool-Aid has stayed a popular summer drink option for 90 years, pointing to its budget-friendly price point and the Kool-Aid Man as two of the biggest reasons. And while it's easy to see that the drink mix has fans come the warmer months, do the brand's ads experience a similar uptick once the sun's out in full force?It ends up that from an attention standpoint, they very much do.Using data from iSpot.tv, we're able to dig into Kool-Aid's ads, and determine which months have generated more traction with viewers. iSpot tracks TV ads 24/7 across linear, VOD, OTT and time-shifted viewings, from a panel of 10 million connected TVs.By placing a demarcation line between the early part of the year (January 1-May 26) and the summer (May 27 kicked off Memorial Day weekend), we see an uptick in success for the brand's ad spots. Take a look at the two graphs below, which compare completion rates for all Kool-Aid ads.Keeping in mind the obvious differences in sample sizes (nearly five months vs. two in the second graph), that's a 19% jump in completion rates during summer, as compared to the earlier part of the year for Kool-Aid. Average view rate, which measures the average percentage of viewers across all TV appearances of an ad, also climbs during summer -- from 82.14% up to 89.29%.Kool-Aid had many of the same spots run during both time frames as well. Though "Morning Person," which debuted back in 2016, appeared during both time frames, its impressions (142.6 million) for just two months of summer lead any ad that showed up in the earlier selection.The brand's ad strategy really doesn't shift from one time period to the other, either. Teen Titans Go, Spongebob Squarepants, the Amazing World of Gumball and the Loud House (all kid-focused programming) were the the top shows for Kool-Aid spots in both time periods. This makes it clearer that ads (the same ads) are finding more success during summer, without much difference in placement strategy at all.Kool-Aid: A summer staple that lives out its seasonal popularity within its ads as well.