{"id":22811,"date":"2025-11-06T19:43:47","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T19:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=22811"},"modified":"2025-11-06T19:43:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T19:43:49","slug":"how-a-home-invasion-turned-into-marketing-gold-for-owala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=22811","title":{"rendered":"How a home invasion turned into marketing gold for Owala"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Caliber is reimagining how stories are created, shared, and valued by meeting audiences on their terms, in their tone, and on their time.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Using insights from its own success on social media, Caliber simplifies social to move brands forward\u2014making work that works.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In 2024, Binoy Zachariah, a musical artist and tennis coach living in LA, said he experienced an attempted home invasion. Luckily, he thought quickly, fighting off the invaders until they left.<\/p>\n

How did he fend them off, you ask? He grabbed the nearest weapon he could find: an Owala water bottle.<\/p>\n

In October of this year, Zachariah recounted the rather unbelievable story in detail on his TikTok and Instagram accounts, with the videos on TikTok racking up 13.7 million and 19.4 million views. The posts caught Owala\u2019s attention, too, and within a week, the company sent Zachariah a custom PR package featuring a safe filled with Owala water bottles (dubbed the \u201cSipcurity Safe\u201d) as well as an all-expenses-paid weekend trip to a destination of his choice.<\/p>\n

It was a scenario neither party could have ever predicted, but one that Owala\u2019s marketing team felt they had to respond to, according to Chad Sorensen, brand director for Owala.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize that this is truly wild,\u201d Sorensen said. \u201cSo we wanted to recognize the human side of things and not just something for the brand to take advantage of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cue the waterworks<\/h2>\n

Sorensen credited Owala\u2019s social team\u2019s social listening efforts for catching wind of Zachariah\u2019s story and bringing it to the larger marketing team\u2019s attention, paving way for them to brainstorm ways they could get involved.<\/p>\n

Sorensen said his team crafted their response to toe the line between being \u201cfun and playful\u2026and helpful.\u201d While the giant safe made for good social fodder, the weekend trip was meant to help Zachariah \u201cdecompress [and] get out of that environment for a little bit,\u201d Sorenson told us.<\/p>\n

Wild as it may be, this is not the first time a water-bottle brand has been involved in a customer\u2019s personal traumatic event. In 2023, a woman shared a story of her car being destroyed in a fire via a video that showed the charred remnants of her vehicle\u2014plus her Stanley cup, largely intact, with ice still inside. That video brought in more than 60 million views.<\/p>\n

Stanley, which did not provide an on-the-record comment, also got involved at the time, gifting the Stanley cup owner new cups and a new car. Other brands and founders, like Kat Von D and Paris Hilton, have also found themselves mentioned in moments of unpredictable personal traumas, and responded in their own ways.<\/p>\n

Commenters on Zachariah\u2019s video were quick to reference the car-fire incident, with one calling his response to the break-in attempt \u201cbetter marketing than the Stanley cup fire.\u201d Sorensen said his team was \u201cfamiliar with the hydration landscape,\u201d but ultimately, he said, Stanley\u2019s viral moment didn\u2019t factor into how Owala responded to Zachariah\u2019s video.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We\u2019re] not looking for any sort of competition or anything like that, just legitimately looking at individuals and trying to find ways to, honestly, blow their minds,\u201d Sorensen said.<\/p>\n

On the whole, Sorensen said that Owala approaches gifting and customer stories on a case-by-case basis, and while some opportunities, like Zachariah\u2019s, might be apt for a bigger response designed to be memorable, other moments are handled more quietly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it felt private, we\u2019ll respond privately,\u201d Sorensen said. \u201cIf it was obviously posted on social media with millions and millions of views and the person who posted seems like they would respond well to something like that, then we would probably match it in a very different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

That could help explain the fact that, according to Zachariah, after he sent Owala an email describing what happened in 2024 after the break-in attempt happened, he received a 15% off coupon in response. According to the company, its customer service team handled his initial email, and the larger team wasn\u2019t aware of the break-in story at that point.<\/p>\n

Double duty<\/h2>\n

The break-in story didn\u2019t only serve as marketing material for Owala. Zachariah told us he made the videos about the experience as part of an effort to build his own social following, suspecting that it could be useful content for the company as well as himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the start of this year, I was really committed to just posting more on TikTok. I am a musician, an artist by profession, and it\u2019s obviously a huge part of being in the music industry,\u201d he said. \u201cThat comes with the pressure, the expectation, to post multiple times a day and try and figure out what your voice is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea to post about the attempted break-in story came to him as he tried to hold himself to a daily posting quota, and it quickly took off. As the comments rolled in, Zachariah said he was \u201camazed\u201d to see the number of comments from people writing that they were learning of the brand for the first time or expressing increased loyalty to Owala. By the time the Sipcurity Safe package arrived, he said, he recognized the marketing gold he had helped create.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I was filming [the unboxing video], I just thought to myself, I\u2019m gagged by this, so surely anyone seeing this would be equally as gagged,\u201d Zachariah said.<\/p>\n

While the viral videos helped bring Zachariah a surge of TikTok followers, he said he is looking for ways to convert his newfound following to engage with his music, too. For now, he\u2019s continuing to feed the Owala-fueled hype while keeping an eye toward longevity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost view it as a really crazy and lucrative side quest that I sort of decided to step out on,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, I am just ultimately grateful for it all. I just don\u2019t want to be the water-bottle guy, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caliber is reimagining how stories are created, shared, and valued by meeting audiences on their terms, in their tone, and on their time. Using insights from its own success on social media, Caliber simplifies social to move brands forward\u2014making work that works. In 2024, Binoy Zachariah, a musical artist and tennis coach living in LA, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\nHow a home invasion turned into marketing gold for Owala | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Caliber is reimagining how stories are created, shared, and valued by meeting audiences on their terms, in their tone, and on their time.Using insights\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=22811\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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