Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 27.10.2025 
Social Folk share their European Agency Awards success.
We’re proud to share that Social Folk has been shortlisted for Best New Business Campaign at the European Agency Awards 2025 for our work launching CANS, a sparkling water brand from Europe, into the UK market. From zero UK presence to now being stocked in Harrods and WHSmith (with more retail partnerships on the way). It’s been an incredible journey to watch unfold.
CANS Challenge
CANS launched in the UK in March 2025 with zero local market awareness, entering one of the most competitive FMCG categories there is.
Our challenge was clear: introduce CANS to the UK market, build immediate visibility and credibility, and inspire people to actually try the product.
As a full-service social and influencer agency, Social Folk managed the launch end-to-end. From audience strategy and content creation to monthly influencer gifting and seeding, paid influencer partnership campaigns, and community management.
The goal was to position CANS as a credible challenger brand, create authentic advocacy through creators and communities, and spark conversations that would help build early retail traction in a space dominated by established global names.
Social Folk’s Signature Strategy
To make CANS visible and relevant, we built an “always-on” ecosystem that combined strategy, education, creativity, and community.
We started by identifying three core audiences:
- Gen Z Trendsetters (18–25): TikTok-first students and young professionals who love discovering and sharing viral finds. This group drives cultural conversation online and influences what their peers try next.
- Wellness-Focused Parents (35–50): Time-poor professionals seeking healthier swaps for their families. They’re driven by function and convenience but want choices that align with their wellness values.
- Health-Conscious Urban Professionals (25–40): Fitness-focused, style-conscious consumers who value design, sustainability, and premium quality in everything they buy, from what they wear to what they drink.
Each audience informed a tailored creative approach. We worked to establish clear content pillars and developed signature content series and cultural activations, such as our viral guerrilla sampling and marathon campaigns, to bring the brand to life across every platform.
Our launch focused on creative content, influencer gifting, paid creator partnerships, and cultural activations that embedded CANS in conversation online and offline.
Influencer gifting
We seeded 180 creators across lifestyle, fitness, and family verticals, using both data and insight to ensure a perfect brand fit. Each received a premium PR box featuring handwritten notes and playful creative props to inspire authentic storytelling.
This initiative kick-started the “CANS Friends” creator community and the first month achieved an organic post rate of 65.5%. Over double the UK industry average of 20–30% for influencer gifting campaigns. The content drove exceptional visibility, engagement, and advocacy, helping CANS quickly establish credibility in a crowded category.
Paid influencer partnerships
Insights from the gifting phase informed a paid creator campaign across our target personas. We partnered with seven creators, including wellness influencers training for the London Marathon, lifestyle creators sharing “corporate girlie” day-in-the-life content that spoke to our professional audience about choosing healthier drinks, and family influencers hosting taste tests with their kids.
Deliverables included IG Reels, TikToks, and Stories, with performance-based boosting applied to the top-performing content to maximise ROI. These collaborations helped position CANS as a credible challenger brand, driving trial and retail sales, and building genuine long-term advocacy that extended well beyond launch.
Cultural activations
We created reactive moments that embedded CANS into real-world culture. The Carnaby Street guerrilla sampling captured genuine consumer reactions on camera, generating viral short-form videos that reached new audiences nationwide.
Around the London Marathon, our team went above and beyond to align CANS with one of the UK’s biggest cultural moments. They spent their Sunday filming on the ground, navigating huge crowds and working within strict event guidelines to find creative ways for CANS to show up around themes of healthy hydration and positive energy.
Armed with witty CANS-themed signs and playful, on-brand messaging, we brought the brand’s personality to life, sparking laughs from runners and spectators and sampling in approved areas along the route. All content was filmed, edited, and live within 24 hours, proving how quick thinking and creativity can deliver cultural impact on the same level as major sponsorships.
Across every touchpoint, the focus remained on agility and authenticity, ensuring CANS showed up where audiences were already engaged, not forcing its way into the conversation.
From Social Buzz To Shelf Space
CANS went from an unknown product to a visible UK challenger brand in just a few weeks. The campaign delivered exceptional influencer engagement and reached millions of people across TikTok and Instagram, helping the brand achieve national visibility and cultural relevance.
This surge in awareness translated directly into retail success, with new listings secured in Harrods and WHSmith, and further conversations underway with premium outlets.
As CANS UK Managing Director, Adam Horler, shared:
“Entering a new market is tough. Entering a new market in a highly competitive category is even tougher. Hannah and her team worked to bring the CANS brand to the attention of the core target audience in record time and cost effectively, given the fact they were operating on a very tight budget. The proof of the pudding was there to see and hear when we were at events and we had multiple comments all the time from target consumers that they had seen the brand on social media recently and were already aware of it.”
What This Award Means to Us
“Being shortlisted for this campaign means such a lot. The CANS launch captures exactly that we love doing. Helping brands break through with smart strategy, creative storytelling, and work that genuinely drives real-world results.
I’m so beyond proud of our team for everything they poured into this project. From the ideas, to the speed and the heart. It’s really lovely to see it all recognised, and we’re absolutely chuffed.” – Hannah Saycell, Founder & CEO, Social Folk
About Social Folk
Social Folk is one of the UK’s fastest-growing social and influencer agencies. A global agency based in the heart of London, we help brands grow through strategy, storytelling, and creator partnerships that make an impact.
Founded by Hannah Saycell, with over a decade of experience spanning the BBC, Director roles at Boots, and leading global social and influencer agencies.
Our experience includes work with global names such as Ribena, Revlon, British Airways, Mars, Häagen-Dazs, and Range Rover, with brands trusting us to blend creativity and commercial strategy to deliver award-winning results.
We make brands go viral through creative social content, integrated influencer marketing, and impactful creator gifting. We also run workshops and coaching sessions for brands that want extra support growing online.
Every campaign we deliver is built on research, creativity, and connection, helping brands show up online with purpose, personality, and measurable impact.
