FUNDAY Brings Back Health-Ade's Gut Guy for 2026
As the annual “New Year, New You” reset kicks into high gear, Health-Ade is taking a more grounded approach to wellness, one built around everyday habits rather than all-or-nothing resolutions. The brand known for its bubbly kombucha crafted to support gut health is extending its "Thrill Your Gut" creative platform with new work timed to the New Year wellness moment, backed by category-leading growth in a challenging market.
Created by branding and advertising agency FUNDAY, the campaign brings back fan-favorite Gut Guy, the brand's cheeky and charming gut health flavor genie. His return builds on what made the original work resonate: using wit and personality to make kombucha’s functional benefits feel less clinical, and a lot more accessible and fun.
Rather than leaning into extreme wellness promises, the latest work reinforces Health-Ade’s belief that feeling good should fit into real life. Gut Guy pops up in everyday moments as a snacking sidekick, a light, relatable reminder that feeling good can start from the inside out.
The campaign extension arrives amid standout performance. Over the past 52 weeks, Health-Ade grew 2.1% in dollar sales while the broader kombucha category declined 6.8%. With a 24% dollar share, the brand is driving more than 100% of category growth, momentum Health-Ade attributes to sustained brand-building efforts alongside product quality and distribution gains.
In one of the campaign’s :15 spots, Gut Guy oozes, “Hold me closer, tangerina ballerina,” in a playful nod to Health-Ade’s real fruit-flavored Tangerine Passion Fruit kombucha. One of three :15-second ads, the campaign uses vibrant visuals, snappy wordplay, and feel-good flavor moments designed to show the satisfying YASSS your gut feels after a sip.
"The new year often comes with pressure to change everything at once," said Sandra Heidrich, Vice President, Marketing of Health-Ade Kombucha. "Bringing back Gut Guy allowed us to continue showing up with a point of view that feels familiar, approachable, and grounded in how people actually live, especially at a moment when people are looking for sustainable ways to feel good."
"From the beginning, Gut Guy was designed to help simplify the conversation around kombucha and gut health," said Jared Folkmann, Chief Creative Officer at FUNDAY. "When you see the kind of performance Health-Ade is delivering, it validates that the creative platform is doing its job. This extension evolves the work while staying true to what made it resonate: making wellness feel exciting and accessible, not intimidating."
The 360-degree nationwide campaign launches between January 1–5 across TV, OOH, digital, and paid social, including Instagram and Facebook.
Credits
Client: Health-Ade
Agency: FUNDAY
Founders: Jared Folkmann and Alex Baghdjian
Chief Creative Officer: Jared Folkmann
Executive Creative Director: Kathryn Whiteside
Creative Director: Stefan Smith
Associate Creative Director (Art): Taylor Lumley
Copywriter: Samantha Angus
Sr. Designer: Dylan Rozario
Head of Strategy: Kelsey Chudiak
Account Director: Yvonne Pikula
Director of Digital Production: Melania Melikian
Editorial House
Editor: Lily Zakaryan
Colorist: Cereal Post
Visual Effects Studio (FUNDAY)
Production Lead: Harry Zakaryan
VFX: Karen Hovhannisyan
