Blake Lively Talks ‘Betty Buzz’ And Dominating The Mixer Drink Industry

Whether she chooses to take a part in a Hollywood production or a major fashion event, Blake Lively always brings her “A” game, and that same dedication has progressed into the ongoing success of her sparkling non-alcoholic premium mixer line, Betty Buzz.

Since launching Betty Buzz as its founder in September 2021, Lively, 34, has noticed the growing public interest and demand of her mixer products out on the market over these past few months.

“It’s just been amazing to see how well-embraced this company has been, when we actually haven’t done any marketing,” Lively tells me. “We waited seven months before we did our first piece of marketing because I really wanted the brand to be able to subsist on its own merit, on its own flavors, on the experience that you feel even walking into a store and seeing it on a shelf. I spent three years building this company, from custom tooling the bottles to the flavors.”

That first piece of marketing came in April with the debut of Lively’s Betty Buzz video ad, where she playfully expresses her endless desire for bubbles while highlighting her Betty Buzz flavors.

“I had no interest in just like slapping my name on someone else’s brand,” Lively continues. “If I was going to build something, I wanted to build it because there’s nothing else out there like it and I wanted it to be the absolute best it could be, better than anything I had tried. I have the unfair advantage of having a very loud megaphone, but I can only sell one bottle that way and the drink itself has to sell the rest of the bottles. In less than seven months, we sold 2.5 million bottles – that’s over 100 thousand cases and that’s with no marketing, so it has been pretty cool to see that.”

Lively’s Betty Buzz ad was created alongside her husband Ryan Reynolds and his Maximum Effort production company, as the real-life Hollywood couple has effectively found ways to playfully cross-promote their individual passion projects. In fact, Reynolds and his Aviation American Gin brand recently put out a Mother’s Day ad, where Lively’s Betty Buzz club soda was used in the making of the video’s holiday punch.

“I mean, the idea of Betty Buzz came out of a partnership in the first place. My husband has a gin company. I was the at-home mixologist. I’m always making drinks for people. I don’t drink. I will sample a drink if I’m making somebody a beverage with alcohol – I’ll taste it to make sure that it tastes good, but the mixers that were available to me were things that I would not drink unless they were doused with alcohol. So, the idea came from our partnership. I mean, everything we do, we do together, for better or worse.”

With Lively’s first job being a co-starring role in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants films, followed by her breakout role as Serena van der Woodsen on Gossip Girl, a beloved television character that would initially turn Lively into the early makings of a fashion trendsetter. Since then, Lively has taken on an elaborate array of well-layered and strong female leading characters in such films as Savages, The Age of Adaline, and A Simple Favor, performances that have made her the illustrious movie star she is today.

As she continues on in her Hollywood career, while also maintaining her focus as a leader at Betty Buzz, I wondered how Lively’s efforts and decision-making position at her mixer brand has brought her satisfaction in ways different from her film and television work.

“Authorship is a huge thing,” Lively continues. “I began acting when I was 16 years old and when you begin acting, you’ll take whatever job you can get. With opportunity if you’re fortunate enough, you’re able to be a little bit more selective about your jobs – but even once you’re there, as an actor, you are very often just a ‘person-for-hire’ versus the person telling the story or the person leading the way. I’m just way too nosy and involved and curious and active to be happy just saying Put me anywhere and I’ll just stand and say whatever you want and wear whatever clothes you want. So even in my professional career, I saw that I was feeling less and less fulfilled when I wasn’t able to also have authorship.”

Being now the mother to three young girls, Lively continued by saying, “Once I had children, that just became even more profound because my time was even more precious, but also I think having children for me made me feel so much more in my skin. I never felt more myself or at ease in my own body or more confident – not to say that there aren’t a bevy of insecurities coming at me a million times a day, but I just feel incredibly settled. I just think that growing up, having kids, all of those things made me feel like I only want to do things where I can have really meaningful collaborations and have authorship. When I say authorship, I’m not trying to be like the sole leader or genius. There’s nothing worse to me than that and I also don’t really believe in that. I believe in really valuable collaborations and that’s where I’m getting my fulfillment these days and I’ve never been happier, professionally.”

Speaking of collaborations, Lively recently turned many heads at the 2022 Met Gala in a custom-made Atelier Versace dress, in which she had a heavy hand in its design and its meticulous creation. Being also a Co-Chair at this year’s Met Gala, I asked Lively how her overall experience was at what is arguably the biggest annual fashion event in the world.

“Oh my gosh! It’s always sensory overload. Somebody said to me once, the Met Ball – it’s like Madame Tussauds, except all the people are real (laughs). I was like yeah, it actually is! So, that never gets old, that people watching. It is incredibly surreal. I was so excited to go this year because of the dress that Versace made for me. That goes back to in everything I do and everything I touch – I get very involved in all of the details. Getting to work with these designers and these tailors and these seamstresses and embroiderers who are just at the top of their craft. Getting to meet them one-on-one when they come and they work on the dress, it is an extension of everything I love.”

For Lively, that love goes far beyond fashion alone. She says that her adoration with everything she does also goes into the many rounds of flavor-testing she does with Betty Buzz, the storytelling she is doing in not only her acting work but also in her filmmaking, from writing to producing. She even shared with me that she is about to direct her first feature length film with Last Night in Soho writer/director Edgar Wright titled Seconds, which Lively says is the first script of his where someone other than himself will be directing, an opportunity she calls “a massive honor with Fox Searchlight.”

When asking Lively how her mindset and business approach in all aspects of her career today have changed since her early days in Hollywood, she says, “I feel like I’ve evolved in that I know what I want and I know who I am more than I ever have. I know that striving for quality and details and being a bit of perfectionist doesn’t make me difficult, it makes me good at what I do. I think that’s an important distinction, especially as a woman, because if you ever push back on anything, you tend to question Am I being difficult or am I standing up for something that I believe in? I’ve had more meaningful partnerships more recently and I’ve found people who value my voice and whose voice I value and I think that’s really important.”

Being well-aware of her influential status with the public and on social media today, Lively revealed to me that Betty Buzz is currently the number one mixer brand globally on Instagram and that their engagement level is 10 times that of their competition in the number two spot. Lively then jokes, “I am not competitive, can you tell (laughs)? Do not play Charades with me. It will end in a bloodbath.”

With five flavors available on the market today and more being carefully crafted by self-proclaimed “flavor nut” Lively and her team, Betty Buzz mixers are made of only clean ingredients, all natural flavors, and made in the USA. With her brand continuing to excel, I wondered what are the present and future goals for Lively and her Betty Buzz team.

“Right now, we are in over 5500 stores nationwide. Our retail partners are really our heart and soul of this business. Nobody knows this, but we’re about to be in Whole Foods nationwide – I think that’s around the end of the summer. We’ve only made our bottles in California, but we are about to start east coast tooling with our bottles, which will just help us with our expansion. We are in Canada, online only. We are in the U.S. and we are also looking to expand globally soon, but obviously, you need to roll that out thoughtfully. It has just been amazing to see how well-embraced this brand has been. Our website sees visitors from 175 countries, which is 90% of the countries worldwide, which just shows that there is interest and there is support.”

As I concluded my conversation with Lively, I left her with one final question: In a world of Betty Buzz, Hollywood projects, fashion events, and home life, where does Blake Lively’s priorities and commitments remain most in 2022?

“Always, my family. My family is always my priority and that has been since childhood, so whether that’s my parents and my siblings, now having my own family. Family is at the root of everything that I do and it’s also at the root of everything that I create. So whenever I create something, I create something with family in mind because that’s just how I live. I am one of five children, I have a large family of my own now. That’s part of the reason why Betty Buzz was important to us, that my kids could drink them, as well as me. That it wouldn’t be ingredients that I would feel bad about them putting in their bodies. That also goes into the types of films I want to be a part of. I want to be in films, I want to make films, I want to author films that I would be proud for my children to see. Even the gowns I wear – I just want my kids to be proud. Family is at the root of everything I do and it’s why I feel good about what I’m doing because it has a real meaning and heart behind it all.”