Get ready with Malibu Pink

By placing the product at the centre of the getting-ready ritual, the brand is turning a cultural moment typically owned by beauty into a new playground for the spirits category.

Greg West, Creative Content Director, and Jess Velastegui, Global Marketing Manager Comms & Content for Malibu, unpack the thinking behind the launch, and what it signals about where spirits marketing is heading next.

What inspired Malibu Pink, and what does it say about the brand’s broader innovation priorities?

Greg: It was a big collaboration between the brand team, marketing, and the Innovation Hub. The idea actually came out of a workshop we held in our New York office a couple of years ago, focused on pink pineapple. It tested really well, but we couldn’t pursue it for trademark reasons.

So, we asked ourselves: what else can we do with this? The answer ended up being a mix of guava, pineapple, and coconut. 

Guava was also a very deliberate choice. It’s a trending flavour, but it also resonates deeply within the Latina community – an audience that has an existing high affinity for the Malibu brand.

Were there any key shifts in the spirits category that made this the right moment for Malibu Pink?

Jess: Pink is making a big comeback in the spirits category, largely driven by the visual economy of social media – the aesthetics of it, the way it photographs.  

Greg: Flavour innovation is also really big in the US market. The creative possibilities around something that is both visually striking and genuinely flavour-forward made sense as an evolution for Malibu to venture into a really playful offering.

… pink is making a big comeback in the spirits category, largely driven by the visual economy of social media…

Jess Velastegui

Where do you see the biggest opportunities for Malibu Pink?

Greg: Products like this do especially well with Gen Z and Malibu already performs strongly among that audience. The opportunity is now to maintain that focus on consumers who are looking for fun, flavourful, easy-to-drink options that also carry genuine cultural relevance.

How have distributors and retail partners responded so far?

Greg: The commercial response has been overwhelmingly strong. In just three months, we’ve exceeded our accounts sold and depletion goals, with strong sellout. And the official campaign hasn’t even launched yet. People are really gravitating to the flavour and the packaging. 

There’s one TikTok from a small independent liquor store in Tennessee – just a photo of the bottles – that has over 3 million views!

Greg West

That kind of organic excitement is really hard to manufacture and it’s great to see how Malibu Pink seems to have captured everyone’s imagination already.

The campaign is built around the #GRWM moment. What made this the right home for Malibu Pink?

Jess: It was actually a really fun brief. The innovation teams had clearly taken a more feminine approach with the colour pink, so we had an opportunity to be a bit more pointed with our audience. In this space, getting ready is almost as important as the night out itself. Music on, makeup everywhere, a whole group of friends crammed in front of a mirror, getting ready together. 

We also knew it’s a moment with enormous social currency. GRWM is one of the top trending hashtags across all social platforms with enough cultural pull that we weren’t alienating anyone beyond our core target.

And crucially, beauty brands have owned this space. Alcohol has never been the main character in a GRWM moment. Malibu is usually the one bringing the summer energy from the sidelines. But here, we had a genuine opportunity to flip that, to make Malibu Pink not a prop in someone else’s getting ready ritual, but the actual star.

Malibu is usually the one bringing the summer energy from the sidelines. But here, we had a genuine opportunity to flip that.

Jess Velastegui

Why was Sabrina Brier the ideal creator to lead this campaign?

Jess: We looked at a long list of well-known GRWM creators, but Sabrina stood out. She has these ‘That friend who…” skits on her profile that are incredibly funny. People may not know her name immediately, but they know her character. We also wanted someone who was relatable – someone people could actually picture themselves getting ready with.

The other key factor was screen presence. We needed someone comfortable in front of the camera. Sabrina has a background in acting, so she was not only the perfect social-native personality, but someone who truly knew how to show up in front of the camera.

Greg: She also has some real comedy chops which added the fun, playful, slightly tongue-in-cheek tone we were aiming for. And the timing has been amazing. Since we partnered with Sabrina, she’s made Variety’s Top 10 Creators to Watch and been featured in Rolling Stone. We think she’s poised for a big breakout and momentum is already building.

What does the LoveShackFancy collaboration bring to Malibu Pink’s broader brand story?

Greg: They’re an incredible partner and well-established in the GRWM space. They couldn’t be more pink and resonate strongly with a younger audience. They also have a real community of their own, including a whole network of influencers, giving us an authentic entry point into this world of getting ready, pre-party rituals, and self-expression.

How is Malibu balancing creator-led content with brand-driven storytelling in this campaign?

Greg: It’s a really big shift for the brand. We know creator-led content is where the market is moving, especially with younger audiences that can immediately detect anything too polished or inauthentic. 

We’re calling them the Malibu Mob, and they’ll be posting from experiential events, showing the brand out in the world organically.

The more brand-led assets, created with Wieden + Kennedy London, follow later in the summer. We’re genuinely excited to see how each layer performs, and what it tells us about how we approach launches in the future. I think it’s going to be instructive for the wider industry, not just Malibu.

So, we’re launching with the creator-layer first, a groundswell of influencers making #GetReadyWithPink content.

Greg West