Adidas x Molly-Mae Branded Drinks Activation
4,000 cans for a launch the whole country was watching.
When Adidas and Molly-Mae needed a drinks moment to match one of the most-hyped trainer launches of the year, Mr Flavour produced 4,000 fully branded iced latte and iced matcha cans, colour-matched to the shoes, deployed nationwide and built to a hard retail deadline.
Iced matcha and iced latte, colour-matched to the two signature trainer colourways behind the campaign.
Two drinks. Two colourways. One launch.
The commission came through experiential agency Hessian Events, working on the Adidas x Molly-Mae trainer launch. The creative idea behind the collaboration was simple and sharp: you’re either an iced matcha kind of girl, or an iced latte kind of girl. Two trainers, two personalities, two distinct colourways, and the drinks had to carry that same split.
That made colour non-negotiable. The deep green of an iced matcha and the soft cream of an iced latte weren’t just flavour choices; they were the visual shorthand for the entire campaign. The cans had to read as the shoes at a glance, on a shelf, in a story, in a photograph.
The volume was the other half of the brief. Adidas needed 4,000 cans produced and delivered into a spread of retail destinations for the launch: flagship Adidas in London, Selfridges at the Trafford Centre, and JD Sports in both Manchester and London. This wasn’t a single venue with a single bar. It was a nationwide retail drop with a fixed launch date, and a perishable product that couldn’t be made too early.
That last point shaped everything. Make the cans too far ahead and they spoil. Make them too late and they miss the launch. The whole job lived inside a narrow production window, and that window is exactly where Mr Flavour’s branded drinks production capability earns its keep.
Iced matcha and iced latte, built for real guests.
The two recipes were fixed by the campaign concept, but developing them for canned production at scale is a different discipline to pouring them fresh. A serve that tastes right from a barista station has to hold its flavour, colour and texture sealed in a can, chilled, transported, and opened hours or days later.
Dietary inclusivity was designed in from the start, not bolted on. Both the iced matcha and iced latte were produced with oat-milk substitute variants alongside the dairy recipes, so the cans worked for lactose-intolerant and dairy-free guests picking one up at a launch. The matcha recipe, for instance, was kept clean and honest: water, oat milk and matcha green tea powder, clearly labelled for the oat allergen. That decision multiplied the number of recipe variants in production and, as it turned out, the number of label variants too.
Every can was a fresh product, not a shelf-stable one. The labels carried a simple instruction: shake well, keep refrigerated, consume within five days. That is exactly why the production window mattered so much. A five-day shelf life leaves no room to make stock early.
The matcha and lattes were brewed in batches in 20-litre containers and chilled before filling, so every can poured from a consistent, temperature-controlled base rather than being mixed on the fly. Consistency at 4,000 units is a production problem, not a recipe problem, and the answer is systems, not speed.
A drinks factory, built for two days.
Using its five-star hygiene-rated kitchen, Mr Flavour stood up a temporary production factory: brewing, chilling, labelling, pouring, sealing, boxing and refrigeration, every stage sequenced so a perishable product moved from base to cold storage in the shortest possible time.
The line that made it possible.
The production floor ran as a sequence of dedicated stations, each one solving for consistency and speed. Bases were brewed and chilled in 20-litre containers. Labels were applied by hand to the front and back of every can. A pouring station filled the 250ml cans to identical levels, the detail that makes a wall of cans look uniform in a photograph. A canning station then sealed and boxed them, and finished stock went straight into refrigeration for storage until dispatch.
The whole run was completed over two days with 12-hour rotation shifts, staffed by a six-strong production team. Rotating shifts kept the line moving without dropping the standard. At this volume, a tired hand on the labelling station is how errors creep in, and errors on a branded product going to a flagship store are not recoverable.
Once produced, the cans were packaged and shipped in temperature-regulated vans to London and Manchester. Cold-chain transport isn’t a nice-to-have on a perishable canned drink. It’s the difference between a product that lands as intended and one that spoils in transit. This is the part of large-scale event delivery that clients rarely see and almost always underestimate.
Brew & chill
Matcha and latte bases brewed in 20L batches and chilled before filling for a consistent, temperature-controlled base.
Label & pour
Front-and-back labels applied by hand; 250ml cans filled to identical levels at a dedicated pouring station.
Seal & chill
Cans sealed, boxed and moved into refrigeration immediately, then dispatched in temperature-regulated vans.
Inside the production run.
Footage from the floor: the canning line in motion, recipes sealed one at a time, and the finished branded cans built up colour by colour. The clip is shot the way these jobs actually look: operational, fast, and exacting.
Where a branded can becomes the brand.
A branded drink only works if the branding is right, and on this job the branding was the most manually intensive part of the entire process. The stickers had to be applied to both the front and back of every can, and the artwork wasn’t uniform across the run. Labels varied by destination and by recipe: Adidas London versus Adidas Manchester, four different ingredient variants, dairy versus oat-milk. Every combination needed its own label.
Compounding the pressure, there were last-minute changes to the artwork and a tight turnaround on the printed stickers. Print lead time, not production, was the constraint that defined the schedule. To stop the variants colliding, labelling was handled meticulously in dedicated slots, with each variant labelled in its own controlled batch so a London can never carried a Manchester label, and a dairy can never carried an oat-milk one.
This is the discipline behind bespoke branded drinks. The recipe is half the job, and the label, the colour-match and the per-destination accuracy are the other half.
From the kitchen to the shop floor.
On launch, the sets were built by stand builders and Mr Flavour staff handed out the iced drink cans as part of a nationwide activation campaign, a branded drink in every customer’s hand at the moment they encountered the shoes.
The hard parts, and how they were solved.
Three constraints defined this job, and each one had an operational answer rather than a hopeful one.
The timing window was the first. A perishable canned product can’t be made early or it spoils, and can’t be made late or it misses the launch. The answer was a sequenced production line that compressed the time between brewing a base and getting a sealed can into refrigeration: speed without sacrificing the cold chain.
The artwork was the second. Last-minute changes and a tight print turnaround on a label set that varied by location and recipe created real risk of mismatched cans. The answer was disciplined batch labelling in dedicated slots, isolating each variant so the variation never became an error.
Volume and consistency was the third. Four thousand cans that all need to look and taste identical is a systems problem. The answer was the line itself: 20-litre brewed bases, fixed-level pouring, six staff on 12-hour rotation and immediate refrigeration, plus temperature-regulated transport to hold the standard all the way to the shelf.
The launch that landed.
The collaboration drew huge impressions nationwide. Adidas reported that search demand increased by 51% following the Molly-Mae collaboration, and the trainers reportedly sold out rapidly after launch, with retailers reporting exceptionally high demand. The partnership has been described as one of Adidas’ most impactful UK influencer collaborations.
Mr Flavour’s role sat at the centre of that moment: producing 4,000 branded iced latte and iced matcha cans inspired by the campaign’s signature trainer colourways, in customers’ hands across flagship retail in London and Manchester. The drink became a piece of the launch itself, something to hold, photograph and share, not a giveaway on the side.
Why most branded drinks miss.
It’s the little details that count. Experiential activation campaigns are unique in the way they market a product: non-pushy, actively engaging the target market in the advertising itself, and showcasing the brand rather than shouting at the customer. A branded drink is one of the best ways to do that: a canned product designed to your brand can tell your brand story through its flavours, its colours and its labels.
That’s where Mr Flavour thrives: understanding the story, understanding the aim of the brief, and delivering a product that aligns with the campaign on both a branding and a storytelling level. Most attempts at a branded drink stop at putting a logo on a paper cup. The Adidas x Molly-Mae cans went the other way: the recipe, the colour and the label were the campaign, in liquid form.
What clients ask us.
Can Mr Flavour produce branded cans for a product launch?
Yes. Mr Flavour produces fully branded canned drinks to order: bespoke recipes, custom front-and-back label artwork, and 250ml sealed cans produced under a five-star hygiene-rated kitchen. For the Adidas x Molly-Mae launch the team produced 4,000 cans across iced latte and iced matcha recipes.
How many branded cans can Mr Flavour produce?
4,000 branded 250ml cans were produced in two days for this launch, running 12-hour rotation shifts with a six-strong production team. Volume scales with lead time. The real constraints are print turnaround and refrigeration capacity, not production speed.
Can the drinks be tailored to dietary requirements?
Yes. This run included oat-milk variants alongside the dairy recipes, so the cans worked for lactose-intolerant and dairy-free guests. Recipe variants are built into the production schedule and labelled in separate batches to avoid any mix-ups.
Can Mr Flavour deliver branded drinks nationwide?
Yes. Finished cans were chilled, boxed and shipped in temperature-regulated vans to retail destinations in London and Manchester, including flagship Adidas London, Selfridges at the Trafford Centre and JD Sports.
Can the can artwork match a specific brand or campaign?
Yes. That’s the whole point of a branded can. Here the iced matcha and iced latte recipes were colour-matched to the two signature trainer colourways, with front-and-back labels produced per destination. Artwork should be locked as early as possible, because print turnaround is the tightest part of the schedule.
Your brand, your campaign, our flavour.
Mr Flavour designs and produces branded drinks activations for product launches, brand campaigns and experiential moments, from bespoke recipe development to fully branded cans, deployed wherever your audience is.