Saratoga Spring Water became an unlikely internet star over the weekend thanks to an extravagant morning routine video from fitness influencer Ashton Hall that went viral. Hall’s rigorous morning ritual involves no fewer than five bottles of Saratoga spring water, two of which are for pouring into bowls of ice and dunking his face into—at precisely 5:49 a.m. and 9:09 a.m., respectively.
@ashtonhallofficialDay 191 of the morning routine that changed my life 3:50am to 9:30am Sin lives late at night.. if you’re dealing with a weak mind, bad decisions, or lack of productivity go to sleep early. 4:00am – 8:00am no one’s calling or distracting your productivity.. they are sleep. 8:00pm – 12:00am is the opposite. Just try 30 days.. send this to your partners. It’s time to do better.
Originally posted on Feb. 7, Hall’s video was re-uploaded by the X account “Tips for Men” last Thursday and has since racked up nearly 723 million views on X, with another 258 million across Instagram and TikTok. The video has sparked a flood of memes, poking fun at everything from Hall dunking his face into ice bowls at exactly 5:49 a.m. and 9:09 a.m., to rubbing a banana peel on his cheek, to a mysteriously missing four minutes during a pool dive.
But amid the chaos, Saratoga has emerged as a visual centerpiece—generating the most meme activity around the video and earning the kind of brand visibility most marketers dream of, without spending a dime. Hall has one of the brand’s deep blue bottles by his side or in his hand at nearly every point in the video, from his 4:04 a.m. set of push-ups to his 9:26 a.m. breakfast served by a faceless off-screen woman.
A quick glance at Hall’s Instagram or TikTok accounts also reveals the fitness influencer features Saratoga in the majority of his latest videos, not just the one that caught the internet’s attention. Hall’s affinity for Saratoga seems to be organic, however, as none of his posts are labeled as sponsored. Saratoga did not respond to a request for comment about whether they have a partnership with Hall.
Saratoga’s heavy presence in Hall’s massively viral video and the ensuing flood of memes has translated into business results for the bottled water brand. As of 10 a.m. on Monday, the meme had boosted Saratoga’s social media followers by nearly 11% in the past week, according to data shared by a Saratoga spokesperson with Ad Age. And the slew of social posts tied to the trend have had a combined reach of 1.26 billion, per the spokesperson.
Hall’s influence even extended to the stock market. His viral video briefly hiked up shares of Saratoga’s parent company, Primo Brands, by about 2% on Monday morning.
Saratoga’s unanticipated role in the latest internet craze is reminiscent of when Josh Cellars was unexpectedly caught up in a viral meme revolving around its wine in January 2024. But while Josh Cellars had a creative agency, Tombras, to help it formulate its online response to the trend, all of Saratoga’s social content responding to the new viral phenomenon has been developed by Primo Brands’ in-house creative agency, The Lab.
Thus far, Saratoga has joined in on the trend with a handful of posts across Instagram and TikTok. On Sunday evening, the brand shared an Instagram carousel containing several text posts set against glossy images of bowls of ice water. Each text post subtly nodded to Hall’s video and the internet buzz around it with phrases such as “Plunge. If you must,” and “Some call it extra. We don’t.”
Saratoga has also posted artwork of one of its water bottles, a banana and a bowl of ice water and a video of its own take on Hall’s affinity for ice-cold bowls of its water. Two of the brand’s Instagram posts have each garnered over 4,500 likes—a significant jump from the average of 150 likes across Saratoga’s other posts from the past few months.
While Hall’s morning routine first began going viral on X, Saratoga has not engaged with the trend on that platform. The brand hasn’t made any new posts on the platform since 2022 beyond replies to questions from customers.
Dozens of other brands have also poked fun at Hall’s over-the-top morning regimen with their own posts about the trend. McDonald’s, for instance, has racked up more than 82,000 likes on an X post with an image of an icy bowl of Sprite timestamped with 4:03 a.m.
Walmart similarly leaned into the trend with a screenshot of an online shopping cart containing 72 bottles of Saratoga water, a dozen bunches of bananas and multiple bags of ice. Merriam-Webster shared a photo of several bananas and a bottle of Saratoga laying atop a dictionary and captioned it, “The definition of ‘locked in.’”
