Gold Coast hard seltzer brand Hard FIZZ has been showcased to 20 million people worldwide with American socialite Paris Hilton sharing a humourous clip of herself on social media chatting to one of the company’s founders, Gold Coast DJ, Paul Fisher … or at least a Hard FIZZ advertising cut out of him.

The heir to the famous Hilton hotel chain uploaded a vlog to Instagram and Youtube of her recent trip to the Coachella music festival in the U.S., in which she proudly says to camera while standing next to the cut out: “I had to bring him (Fisher) to Coachella!”

The clip clearly shows the Hard FIZZ slogan, ‘Let’s get fizzy’ on the cut out.

Later in the vlog, Hilton asked the cut out: “are you ready to lose it? Let’s go” – a reference to Fisher’s Grammy nominated song, Losing It.

“It’s incredible exposure for Hard FIZZ, which is still just a Gold Coast start up,” Hard FIZZ Buzz Generator, Joel Scott, said.

“For Paris Hilton to share our brand, and have a bit of a laugh with us, is a big deal. This kind of plug can blow a company up.”

It’s understood Hilton is a personal friend of Fisher, whose cut outs have become the subject of a trending internet craze called ‘Fishin’ for Fisher’, in which the boards are stolen from bottle shops and used in pranks before being uploaded to social media.

Social media key to Hard FIZZ success

Former Bacardi business manager Tiller, Australian DJ Paul Fisher, former Nine cameraman and The Mad Hueys co-founder Joel Scott, and US-based Libre Design executive creative director Justin Heit first came up with the idea in late 2019.

DJs Tigerlily and Brooke Evers, professional surfer Laura Enever, Fae Swim founders Adam and Bianca Bennetts and TV chef Hayden Quinn were soon recruited to the team.

The seltzer is now stocked in 3000 outlets across the country, including Dan Murphy’s and BWS. Hard FIZZ has also launched a brewery on the Gold Coast and the brand has about a 5.2% share of the Australian seltzer market.

According to IRI, Hard FIZZ is now the third most popular brand at independent retailers and the data analytics and market research company predicts seltzer sales in Australia will hit $300 million by 2025.

Tiller puts the brand’s success down to its focus on social media. Together the founding group have a reach of three million people across their various Instagram accounts and they set out to have the most social media followers of any hard seltzer in Australia.

“It wasn’t a strong point for the big competitors we were against, and we identified social media as our billboard, our version of outdoor advertising,” Tiller told the Australian Financial Review earlier this month.

“Fisher had been sharing with us about how he had been building his own brand and network through Instagram… and we had this underlying power through him.”

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