Think of your favorite celebrity.
Now, think of a brand that they should collaborate with.
There is a high chance that there is some pre-existing relationship that your celebrity has with the brand you chose. Or, at least the product your brand produces. Maybe, we think of a musician and a collaboration with a music streaming platform, a beauty influencer and a collaboration with a makeup brand, or an athlete and a collaboration with a footwear company. However, celebrity collaborations that have become extremely popular over the past few years are with fast-food restaurants. We've seen as Travis Scott, Saweetie, Mariah Carey, BTS, and many more collaborated with Mcdonald's, Charli D'amelio, and Ice Spice with Dunkin Donuts, Megan Thee Stallion with Popeyes...and the list goes on. Some of these partnerships do make sense, however, some seem quite random. They might even make you question whether or this celebrity has actually ever even tried their own meal.
Putting a celebrity's name on any product will without a doubt draw their fans to that product, especially if it is as cheap as a fast food meal. Collaborations like these are key examples of how well brands listen to the groundswell. They aren't necessarily listening to the groundswell to discover what they should change about their product, but more to discover what celebrities they should be reaching out to to attract the most consumers. For example, a female rapper named Ice Spice has gained extreme popularity over the past year, and she is continuing to grow bigger and bigger. Dunkin Donuts saw an opportunity and jumped on it, collaborating with Ice Spice for the release of a new fall drink.
Here is how Dunkin teased the release of the Ice Spice drink on Instagram with the caption "putting the ice in pumpkin spice". This collaboration just makes perfect sense. Ice Spice calls her fans her "Munchkins", the word "spice" is already in her name, AND she is an extremely popular artist at the moment. So, Dunkin released a pumpkin-munchkin coffee drink called the "Ice Spice Munchkins Drink". Dunkin has taken to social media to promote this collab in very creative ways, including this video featuring Ben Affleck.
Something that is so great about these collaborations is the fact that consumers do a lot of the advertising work for the brands by posting these products on social media. Searching "ice spice drink" on TikTok generated hundreds and hundreds of videos of TikTok users posting their reviews of the new drink. Sometimes there are even trends created circling around celebrity fast food collabs, like the Travis Scott meal at McDonald's, for example. One TikTok user posted a video going through the McDonald's drive-thru, and when asked what he wanted to order, he played the intro of Travis Scott's song "Sicko Mode", insinuating that he wanted to order the Travis Scott meal, and from here, this trend blew up. McDonald's did not encourage this trend at all, but the consumers did all of the advertising work for them.
There has been a recent collab between singer, Renne Rapp, and Sweetgreen, a salad restaurant, that has been perfectly executed. Rapp is a singer and actress who has also gained a lot of popularity recently. She posted a TikTok a couple months back of her coming home from work, exhausted and crying, showing her Sweetgreen bowl that she got delivered to her house. And now, as of one week ago, her collaboration with Sweetgreen has been launched. This meal collab is unlike one that has been done before, with the promo photos looking like a magazine photoshoot.
Rapp even visited a Sweetgreen location and sang a new song release, as a way to promote her meal. From the fact that she has expressed a prior interest in the brand, the creative photos for social media, and the innovative promotion techniques, this is a spot-on example of a successful celebrity meal collab.
Celebrity meal collabs are also great ways for brands to encourage consumers to download apps, as some meals are app-exclusive. So, we can see that these collaborations have benefits to brands as they attract new audiences and gain free advertising, benefits to celebrities as they gain more visibility, and benefits to consumers as they are given ways to further connect with artists that they love. In order for brands to develop successful celebrity meal campaigns, they must carefully monitor the groundswell, noting popular figures and trends, leading them to creative ways to sneak into the realm of celebrity meals.
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