Celsius Is Paying $90M+ in Lawsuits After Betting Big on Influencers. Here’s How They Can Stop the Bleeding.

$82 million. Gone.

In a single lawsuit, Celsius lost more than most brands will make in a lifetime.

That was just the beginning.

🚨 A $7.8M class action for false advertising.
🚨 Now, a lawsuit over deceptive influencer marketing.

The same influencer strategy that made Celsius a $10B giant is now dragging it into court.

This isn’t just one bad lawsuit.
This is self-sabotage.

Celsius bet everything on influencer marketing.

• No big TV ads.

• No Super Bowl commercials.

• Just relentless influencer-driven social proof.

It worked—until it didn’t.

The Playbook: How Celsius Used Influencers to Dominate Energy Drinks

Celsius wasn’t supposed to win.

Monster and Red Bull owned the energy drink market.

So Celsius did something different: it weaponized influencer marketing to hijack social media culture.

Here’s the playbook:

1️⃣ Micro & Macro Influencer Domination

Celsius didn’t just sponsor celebrities—it flooded social media with fitness influencers, lifestyle creators, and micro-influencers who made the brand feel like an organic part of daily life.

✅ From Jake Paul (42M+ followers) to TikTok creators with just a few thousand fans, Celsius blanketed Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
✅ Unlike traditional ads, these endorsements felt personal and trustworthy—because the influencers appeared to genuinely love the brand.

This, in theory, isn’t problematic…but it got problematic in practice…

🔹 Trust built on deception doesn’t collapse overnight. It accrues like interest, until one day the bill comes due.

2️⃣ "No Paid Partnerships" Approach → The Start of Self-Sabotage

This is where Celsius crossed the line.

Instead of transparently labeling influencer deals as sponsored, Celsius influencers often presented their love for the drink as completely organic.

🚨 Red flag: Influencers were being paid but didn’t disclose it.
🚨 Legal issue: This blurred the lines between organic endorsements and FTC violations.
🚨 Hidden cost: Celsius wasn’t just racking up influencer partnerships—it was racking up a liability consumers wouldn’t tolerate once they found out the truth.

This approach built massive consumer trust—but on a lie.

🔹 Consumers believed influencers genuinely loved Celsius.
🔹 That trust fueled explosive brand growth.
🔹 But the moment the truth came out that influencers were paid without disclosing it. Celsius wasn’t just breaking the law…
🔹 Consumers don’t take kindly to deceptive advertising, especially when they realize they were played.

It was breaking consumer trust, and consumers don’t forgive deception.

When brands get caught misleading customers, the backlash is worse than if they had never marketed at all.

🔹 Celsius thought it was scaling trust. It was borrowing it and now the debt collectors have arrived.

3️⃣ Viral Stunts & Celebrity Collabs

Celsius didn’t just rely on influencer posts. It engineered viral moments to dominate digital culture.

✅ Hosted a celebrity pickleball tournament at David Dobrik’s house
✅ Partnered with Jake Paul for fight sponsorships & YouTube content
✅ Launched fitness challenges & giveaways to skyrocket organic reach

These weren’t just marketing plays. They made Celsius a lifestyle brand.

4️⃣ Infiltrating College Campuses…The Wrong Way

This is where Celsius really sabotaged itself.

It copied Red Bull’s legendary campus strategy, but twisted it into a legal liability.

🔹Celsius didn’t just create hype. It created a liability with a pattern of deception.

The Lawsuits: The True Cost of “Ask For Forgiveness, Not Permission” Influencer Marketing

While Celsius was scaling through influencers, regulators, lawyers, and angry consumers were taking notice.

Here’s how it’s catching up to them:

🔹 The cost of compliance is tiny compared to the cost of deception lawsuits. Celsius learned that the hard way.

But Celsius isn’t doomed. Far from it.

They have one of the strongest brand moats in the energy drink space.

• The hype isn’t dying.

• The demand is through the roof.

• But legal problems don’t go away on their own.

The good news?

Celsius doesn’t need to abandon influencer marketing. It just needs to run it smarter.

Step 1: Embed Compliance into Every Influencer Marketing Workflow

• Every influencer signs a digital agreement outlining FTC disclosure rules.

• Contracts include mandatory compliance terms before any payment is made.

• An influencer marketing compliance specialist (not just a marketing team) oversees influencer adherence.

Step 2: Train Influencers on Compliance

• Every influencer completes compliance training before their first post.

• Clear disclosure guidelines: Exact wording & placement rules (ie: #ad in the first two lines).

• Ongoing compliance training as FTC and other regulatory body rules evolve.

Step 3: Automate Compliance Checks Before a Post Goes Live

• AI-powered content scanning checks for missing disclosures.

• Real-time alerts notify influencers of compliance issues before posting.

• Repeat violators flagged for review.

Step 4: Keep a Compliance Audit Trail to Protect the Brand

• Every compliance action logged & time-stamped.

• Live compliance dashboard proves disclosure adherence instantly.

• If a lawsuit happens, Celsius has ironclad defense records.

Step 5: Work with Dedicated Compliance Support

• Hire (or outsource) compliance specialists to oversee influencer campaigns.

• Conduct regular risk assessments to detect issues before regulators do.

• Make proactive compliance part of influencer marketing strategy, not just reactive legal clean-up.

The Bottom Line: Less Lawsuit Exposure. More Brand Dominance.

Let’s not be delusional. Lawsuits can’t be avoided completely.

But the difference between a legal headache and an $82M disaster comes down to one thing:

Whether you’re reacting to lawsuits…or proactively minimizing the risk of getting hit.

Celsius doesn’t have to choose between explosive influencer-driven growth and safety.

They can master both with:

✅ Compliance-forward influencers & marketers
✅ Compliance-forward workflows between the two

And when Celsius embeds compliance into its workflow, it won’t just avoid lawsuits. It’ll set a new industry standard.

Kaeya

PS: Make no mistake. I admire Celsius intensely.

I’m just a pleb in comparison. An executor in the trenches, watching from the sidelines as this brand rewrote the energy drink playbook.

Celsius didn’t just enter the market.
Celsius came for the crown.
And took it.

They went head-to-head with Goliaths like Monster and Red Bull…brands with decades of dominance, infinite marketing budgets, and ingrained distribution networks.

And they actually did the damn thing.

Fastest-growing energy drink in recent years.
A multi-billion-dollar behemoth built on a playbook no one else dared to run.

And if I’m being brutally honest, as a founder with a decade of false starts and hard lessons, I have no right to do anything but gawk in admiration.

I’m only now beginning to grasp the iceberg of complexity, orchestration, and execution it takes to pull even a tenth of what Celsius has done off.

To have the vision AND the execution precision.

I mean…
I bow down.