Cardi B is not just collecting another celebrity endorsement check. The Bronx superstar has secured an ownership stake in Zevia while starring in the soda company’s biggest national campaign yet, marking another strategic move in a business portfolio that continues shifting from paid partnerships to long-term equity.
According to a press release from the company, the campaign launched July 21 across streaming television, video, social media, retail displays and a nationwide sweepstakes.
The campaign did not come out of nowhere. According to Marketing Dive, Zevia named Cardi B a shareholder and brand ambassador back in March, when the company also announced it would sponsor her Little Miss Drama Tour. That earlier move quietly set the terms for this new campaign, and it means Cardi is not just cashing an appearance fee. She holds a financial stake in Zevia’s growth, so every can sold works in her favor long after the commercials stop airing.
That structure, ownership instead of a flat check, is the through line of nearly every move Cardi B has made in business over the last several years. Cardi B brand deals used to look like typical celebrity endorsements. Now they increasingly look like ownership stakes, and that shift did not happen overnight.
Go back far enough and the numbers tell the story of how much her leverage has grown. Cardi has said her very first paid brand deal was in 2016, and it paid her $200 a post. She has since said she now commands “brand deals for over $5 million for a campaign.” That jump alone explains why companies keep lining up for a piece of her audience.
Those modest earnings were just the start of the Cardi B brand empire. Over the years she has fronted campaigns for Reebok, NYX Professional Makeup, Pepsi, Steve Madden, McDonald’s, Uber Eats and Knorr, along with fashion moments for Skims, Marc Jacobs and Balenciaga. Those partnerships built her into one of the most bankable faces in entertainment, but they were still someone else’s brand paying her to show up.
The real turn came with Whipshots, the vodka infused whipped cream she co founded with Starco Brands in 2021. Whipshots sold five million cans within three years of hitting shelves, making it one of the more successful celebrity backed product launches in recent memory. Unlike a paid ad, Whipshots is hers. She built it, and she profits from every can, not just the ones she posts about.
From there the Cardi B brand empire only got more ambitious. In 2025, Cardi entered a joint venture with Revolve Group to launch her own apparel and beauty brands. It marked her first fully owned lines in either category, a milestone she had been teasing for years, telling the outlet that fans had been expecting a beauty launch from her the way they expect a new album. Cardi B brand deals had finally evolved into Cardi B owned brands, and that shift changed the entire conversation around her business future.
The latest Zevia partnership fits neatly into that same pattern. It is not a one off ad campaign. She is a shareholder in a publicly traded beverage company, tied to its performance the same way she is tied to Whipshots and to whatever comes out of the Revolve partnership. The soda brand gets her cultural reach and her comedic timing, both on full display in the new commercials. She gets a stake in a growing zero sugar category that keeps outperforming traditional soda, a category shift Zevia has built its entire identity around since day one.
What makes this moment stand out is the range. Cardi B brand deals now stretch across beverage, beauty, fashion, food and spirits, and she sits on different sides of the table depending on the deal. Some are still straightforward endorsements. Others, like Whipshots, Revolve and now Zevia, put her name on the cap table instead of just the commercial.
That range is exactly what makes her one of the most consistent brand builders in hip hop right now. She has not chased every deal that came her way. She has stacked them, learned the terms that work best for her, and pushed toward ownership every chance she gets. A soda campaign might seem like a small step compared to a beauty line or a spirits brand, but it fits the same long term pattern building underneath her career. Cardi B is not just taking checks anymore. She is building equity, one partnership at a time, and the Real Talk Interpreter campaign is only the latest proof that the strategy is working.
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