[ Club-Mate UAE · Dubai ]
From absent to named in 1 in 3 Gemini answers on healthier energy drinks in Dubai.
The UAE distributor of Club-Mate, the German yerba-mate soda, needed buyers to find it as a healthier alternative to mainstream energy drinks while it prepared its launch. Daily AI-first articles took it from no AI presence to a regular name in Gemini's answers, with its own site cited as a source.
The impact
- 0% → 34%Gemini answers naming Club-Mate on unbranded drink questions
- 37%Gemini answers citing its website in August, from 0% in May and June
- 0% → 10%Perplexity answers citing its website, May to August
- 2ndOn Google for “healthy drinks in Dubai”, reported by the team in May
[ The results, in numbers ]
0% → 34%
GEMINI ANSWERS NAMING THE BRAND
37%
GEMINI ANSWERS CITING ITS SITE, AUGUST
2nd
GOOGLE · “HEALTHY DRINKS IN DUBAI”
21
DAYS TO FIRST GOOGLE AI OVERVIEW APPEARANCES
[ The challenge ]
A household name in Germany, a newcomer in the UAE.
Club-Mate UAE was getting ready to sell in a market where few people knew the drink. When buyers asked AI for a natural energy drink, a zero-sugar option or an alternative to the big brands, the answers named everyone else. The site had nothing AI could quote.
- Yerba-mate soda
- Energy-drink alternative
- Pre-launch
- Dubai
May 2026: asking Gemini
Gemini named other drinks. Across the questions we tracked in May and June, it named Club-Mate in none of its answers.
September 2026: asking Gemini
Gemini's answer lists natural, zero-sugar options, including:
Named in 21 of 21 Gemini answers to this question in the tracked weeks before the end of September.
The goal set at the start: AI presence before launch
21 days to first AI presence
Be a brand AI suggests when Dubai buyers look for a healthier energy drink, before the product is widely on sale. Daily publishing put it in Google AI Overviews within three weeks.
[ What we did ]
A daily answer to the questions buyers ask AI about energy drinks.
The Index Lab content engine, tuned for a consumer drinks launch with no history in the market.
↓APrompt & content strategy
- Mapped the category and comparison questions health-conscious buyers ask AI, from zero-sugar energy drinks to how Club-Mate compares with mainstream brands.
- Built the first question set from the brand's own site and positioning.
↓BContent execution
- Published an AI-first article almost every day from late February.
- Wrote each piece to answer one buyer question directly, in the shape AI quotes.
↓CMonitoring & Sentinel
- Tracked the brand every week on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.
- Reported naming and citation rates per engine and per question to the team.
[ The results ]
Gemini went from silence to naming it in a third of answers.
From July, Gemini began naming Club-Mate on unbranded questions about healthier energy drinks, and by September it appeared in about a third of answers. Gemini cited the brand's own site even more often than it named it. Perplexity began citing the site too, in up to 1 in 10 answers.
Share of Gemini answers naming Club-Mate
- Unbranded drink questions, weekly
- May to 21 September 2026
- ✓Named in about a third of Gemini answers on unbranded energy-drink questions by September, from none in May and June.
- ✓Its own website cited in 37% of Gemini answers in August.
- ✓Named in 21 of 21 Gemini answers to “Natural energy drinks with zero sugar and vegan ingredients”.
- ✓Second on Google for “healthy drinks in Dubai”, as the team reported in May.
- ✓First Google AI Overview appearances within three weeks of daily publishing.
“To be honest it's been very impressive what you did and how it has been working in terms of regularly posting content, which is really cool.”
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