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Have you ever been to the Gamerhood? Part game show, part reality series, it recently wrapped its fourth season in August. Over five weekly episodes on Twitch and YouTube, the show pitted gaming creators like Kai Cenat, Ludwig, Mark Phillips, and Berleezy, against each other in a combination of gaming and IRL challenges. The third season from last summer attracted more than 23 million views. In September, the show went mainstream when season four landed on Prime Video. Even before that, just on YouTube and Twitch, season four was getting about 20 million views for each episode. Not too shabby for a show created by a brand. Thats right, Gamerhood is fully owned by State Farm, and it’s a key part of the brands marketing strategy. State Farms head of marketing Alyson Griffin says that despite the unpredictability of creators and reality TV, the reward is worth any perceived brand risk. We believe in them, she says. We don’t script them. They say the things they want to say, they can do the things they want to do. And we’re in the risk business! Nobody does that in insurance, right? We’re excited about extending the reach of that for an even bigger audience. Some brands make funny ads. Some brands invest in entertainment IP. Some brands go deep into major sports sponsorships. State Farm utilizes all of these and Jake of courseto firmly embed the brand in culture. It’s a flywheel of culturally relevant content across many different audiences, which has helped the company boost its net worth to $145.2 billion in 2024, up from $134.8 billion in 2023. There’s a sea of sameness in insurance or financial services in general, says Griffin. We are meticulous about creating conditions over time, with a longer view, that allow us to capture lightning-in-a-bottle moments when they make themselves available. Heres how State Farm does it. In this premium piece, youll learn: Where Gamerhood fits into State Farms growing brand entertainment strategy State Farm’s head of marketing on the secret sauce that makes a boring company break through The balance stake State Farm strikes between mainstream advertising, celebrities, sports sponsorships, and original IP Why embracing risk with creators is so important to brands in 2025 State Farm Gamerhood Season 4 hosts and contestants (from left): Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez, Jake from State Farm, JasonTheWeen, Ludwig, CouRage, Cinna, Mark Phillips, Berleezy, Sydeon, LuluLuvely, Barbara Dunkelman. [Photo: State Farm] Nobody cares, now what? In Spike Lees newest Apple TV film Highest 2 Lowest, the characters David (Denzel Washington) and his chauffeur Paul (Jeffrey Wright) are in the car. Paul pulls out a gun to deal with their situation. What is that? David asks, as Paul cocks it. Insurance, says Paul. Thats Jake from State Farm. This is what marketers call cultural relevance. When Paul says the line, its a joke everyone gets. It even made it to the trailer. Theres no brand partnership or product deal, just an acknowledgement of the place in pop culture that State Farm has carved out over many, many years including Super Bowl ads, major sponsorships, and celebrity ad campaigns across the NBA, NFL, and Major League Baseball. This isnt the first time State Farm has been involved with Apples entertainment. While this one was unexpected, its hilarious take on the hit show Severance was very much part of the plan. Griffin says the goal of the brands full court press on pop culture is relevance. First of all, nobody cares about insurance, she says. Nobody’s thinking about it unless something happens and they need it. They also aren’t going to statefarm.com to just casually see what their insurance carrier has to say on a random Tuesday. It’s not happening. Nobody cares. You have to break through. This is why we get Megan Trainor trying to be an NFL trainer for Patrick Mahomes, Jason Bateman rivaling Batman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger turning the tagline into Like a good neighbaaaaaa! for the Super Bowl. Its also how we get Travis Scott teaming with Jake from State Farm to create custom varsity jackets at Coachella. That mix of names alone illustrates the various ways the brand is aiming at a variety of audiences. When you break through and you’re relevant, you get earned media, talk value, and social engagement, says Griffin. I have to use the right talnt to break through, so when you see the ad, it’s actually better, more creative, and more interesting. But its the less high-profile names that have Griffin most excited right now, and the strategy around it she says is a key to the future. Creators are key State Farms budget for Gamerhood wasnt a big departure from what they were already spending to advertise in gaming. Griffin says it was just a matter of shifting spend from other investments that were essentially getting them a static logo on a game screen. I just thought I could get more engagement with it than just a passive logo, she says. The secret is investing in, and trusting, creators to do what they do best. Griffin says it can be nerve-wracking for any marketer to cede control of their brand, but so far, it has been worth it. Griffin says that the key to a successful partnership with creators is to be prepared to give up some control. Brand leaders must do their due diligence and vet any potential partner, but then they must let them cook. If you know you have the right person, because you vetted them to your brand needs, let them be them,” says Griffin. “Let them create because then it looks and is authentic. Cenat is one of the most popular creators and streamers on the planet. He ran a month-long Twitch stream in September that peaked at more than one million concurrent viewers and 82.5 million hours watched. Hes also one of the stars of the newest season of Gamerhood. But State Farms work with Cenat goes beyond the stream. Cenat also starred in the brands Super Bowl turned March Madness spot with Jason Bateman. Griffin says that Cenats help in explaining the situation of delaying the Super Bowl ad, due to sensitivity about the severity of the Los Angeles wildfires, came from trust built over time. He worked with the brand to get on Jimmy Fallon to explain why State Farm delayed the ad spot’s rollout. That was not what we intended to do with that spot, that’s not what he signed up for, says Griffin. He signed up to be in the Super Bowl, and he could have been mad about it. Instead, he helped us think strategically about how to make that transition and make it work. Measuring success Looking at all the various ways State Farm is getting its brand out into the world and into culture, it can be tough to decipher how it defines success with its advertising and marketing investments. Griffin says that State Farms marketing is split across three areas: current demand, future demand, and retention. Current demand is work aimed at people who are actually in the market for insurance. Every dollar that the current demand team spends is measured against a bound policy, so you better be effective and efficient, she says. These are deals and promos that really show people why State Farm is a good choice for them right now. The bigger swings in brand building are more closely tied to the other two buckets. Future demand is about starting to build a relationship with people outside of their specific insurance needs, so when they do shift over to the current demand category, they have State Farm in mind. Not $1 that we spend in future demand is measured against the bound insurance policy, says Griffin. It is about paving the way, firing synapses, dopamine, serotonin, attention, reach, engagement, talk, value, PR, and earned media. Retention is a mix of the first two, making sure the brand work makes them feel good about the company, while still offering them deals and upgrades to keep their business. For Gamerhood, the measurement for success is more specific. Just before the third seasons launch in August 2024, gamer Ludwig posted a TikTok clip of himself, dancing with fellow gamers Berleezy, Mark Phillips, and Kyedae. There was no State Farm or Gamerhood branding, and among the more than 2,000 comments, fans were trying to figure out why their favorite gamers were together like this. Among them was, This gotta be State Farm Gamerhood. @ludwig slay #jojosiwa Karma – JoJo Siwa For Griffin, that was the proof she needed. I knew it right then, she says. Unaided with no identifying marks, the target market is anticipating why those people are together and what they’re doing. And I was like, Well, we just, we won IP right there.
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E-Commerce
PepsiCo, the food and bev giant behind childhood favorites like 7UP, Mountain Dew, Lays, and Doritos, just got new branding, and it looks nothing like its namesake product. The new PepsiCo brand identity, which includes a fresh wordmark, logo, and tagline, is the companys first rebrand since 2001. The company has had three different corporate identities since its inception in 1965, and all of them have taken their most prominent design cues from Pepsi, the soda brand that started it alluntil now. [Image: PepsiCo] When PepsiCo designed its last identity in 2001, it owned 13 consumer brands. Today, it owns more than 500. And, over the past several months, PepsiCo has signaled that it intends to focus on more price-conscious serving sizes and a healthier product line-up amidst low consumer spending and an increased cultural focus on wellness. Now, PepsiCo wants customers to know that its more than just one sugary cola, and its signaling that shift by ditching the former blue and red color palette and Pepsi-coded fonts in favor of a totally new look. Inside PepsiCo’s colorful new brand At first glance, PepsiCos new brand mostly looks like a few different abstract colorful shapes stitched together. But, according to a blog post on the rebrand, each visual element is intended as a nod to a different part of PepsiCos business, from its salty drinks to its growing focus on health and nutrition. The new PepsiCo logo is a white lowercase p surrounded by several different forms. On the left is a burnt yellow motif, which, according to PepsiCos description, represents food and grains, a concept rooted in agriculture. To the right is a light blue blob, signifying drinks and water, as well as a light green leaf, denoting “positive impact for people and planet. [Image: PepsiCo] And on the bottom of the p is a forest green smile, which stands for consumer-centricity. Paired with the logo is a new, all-lowercase font with modern, curvy letterforms and the tagline, Food. Drinks. Smile. Our color palette draws from the real worldthe rich soils that nourish our foods, our refreshing drinks, and the vibrant hues that reflect our commitment to people and the planet, the blog post reads. The new custom typeface, featuring lowercase letters, conveys a sense of approachability that mirrors the bold, consumer-centric spirit of our brands. [Image: PepsiCo] From a branding standpoint, the new identity is nothing groundbreaking. Its amalgamation of different symbolswhich, on first look, dont resemble much of anythingfeels like an inevitable result of the near-impossible effort to encapsulate 500 brands in one identity. Still, the rebrand is a good barometer for where PepsiCo sees itself in the future. This update is designed to establish PepsiCo as a company thats not defined by just one brand, but rather the sum of them. As the blog post explains, its a significant opportunity to highlight the depth and diversity of our portfolio, considering that just 21% of consumers are able to name a PepsiCo brand aside from Pepsi. Why PepsiCo might be distancing itself from Pepsi For PepsiCo, expanding consumer awareness beyond just Pepsi is clearly a key goal. Since 2001, PepsiCo has acquired big names including SodaStream, Quaker foods, and Rockstar, while also pouring major investments into its own brands like < href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91276977/gatorade-future-brand-stratgy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gatorade and Lays. More recently, the company has also begun to focus on bringing in more health-conscious brands with lower sodium, saturated fat, and sugar contents. In January, it acquired the grain-free, healthy tortilla chip brand Siete Foods for $1.2 billion, and in March, it shelled out $1.65 billion to acquire the prebiotic soda brand Poppi. PepsiCo is also preparing to launch its own prebiotic cola brand this fall, as well as introducing Lays and Tostitos with no artificial colors or flavors by the end of the year. During PepsiCos Q4 2024 earnings call in February 2025, CEO Ramon Laguarta explained that the company has seen a higher level of awareness in general of American consumers toward health and wellness, which he said was driving shifts in how consumers approach snacking. He shared that the company plans to focus more on building out its healthy options (including by pursuing protein beverages with a sense of urgency), as well as on developing products and packages that are more budget-friendly for customers with limited discretionary spending. In a letter posted to LinkedIn on October 28, Laguarta wrote of the new branding, This new identity boldly reflects who we are in 2025: a company with expansive reach, aiming for positive impact across the globe, and an unmatched family of beloved food and drink brands, made with high-quality ingredients and including functional benefits like protein and superior hydration. PepsiCos new identity looks less like a bottle of soda and more like a health foods brand, and thats very much by design. The company wants to be known not only for its bevy of salty chips and sugary drinks, but also for its expanding category of better-for-you options.
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E-Commerce
It looks and feels like any other luxurious cashmere sweater. But a new oversized crew from Reformation is made entirely from recycled fiber, a milestone three years in the making. The brand now makes a cardigan, crew, V-neck, and five other styles from a carefully developed blend of 95% recycled cashmere and 5% recycled woolthe unexpected material that made 100% recycled fiber feasible. Some other pieces in its lineup still use a small amount of virgin cashmere, but Reformation is aiming to eliminate it completely. “It really does have an outsized and shockingly large footprint compared to other fiber, says Kathleen Talbot, Reformation’s chief sustainability officer. In 2023, the company calculated that even though virgin cashmere made up less than 1% of the materials it sourced, it was responsible for nearly 40% of the brands carbon footprint. Most cashmere comes from Mongolia and China, where cashmere goats are combed once a year for their fine, soft fleece; a single sweater can use cashmere from four or five goats. As the demand has grown, there are now more than 90 million of the goats in China, and around 25 million more in Mongolia. Overgrazing is turning grasslands into desert. The goats also produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas. [Photo: Reformation] Making recycled fiber work Using recycled cashmere helps avoid those environmental challenges, but it’s historically been difficult to do. Recycling shortens the fiber, which risks making it weaker and more likely to pill. “We don’t want to be introducing a recycled product that doesn’t perform the same way or is a lower quality or less durable good,” Talbot says. “That, to us, is not a sustainability play.” The company worked with suppliers to develop a proprietary method to twist the yarn and wash and finish it for the right hand feel and durability. First they achieved a blend of 70% recycled cashmere and 30% virgin fiber, then 90% recycled, and then 95% recycled. “At each of these milestones, to be really honest, we thought that was going to be our upper limit based on the yarn performance and the product performance,” says Talbot. [Photo: Reformation] When they hit 95%, they asked suppliers why they couldn’t reach 100%. Technically, suppliers said, it was possible. But because the shorter recycled fibers are more prone to breakage, the yarn would have to be spun incredibly slowly. It would make producing the material so much more expensive that it wasn’t commercially viable. That’s why the design team turned to wool to make the 100% recycled product. Even after recycling, wool was “slightly longer and thicker than the cashmere fibers,” Talbot says. “Our suppliers felt confident that it would give it the right stability and really hold up in the spinning and knitting process.” The blend’s carbon footprint is 96% smaller than virgin cashmere, and uses nearly 90% less water to produce. After dozens of tests, they moved forward with it, and then spent months testing garments made from it. Internally, the company’s “Better Materials Task Force,” made up of around 20 leaders, wore the new recycled sweaters around the office and at home, washed them, and monitored whether they held up as well as sweaters made from virgin material. “We never really want to be promoting something just for impact that doesn’t have a really compelling product value proposition at the same time,” Talbot says. [Photo: Reformation] Scaling up When the company first started incorporating more recycled cashmere, sourcing the recycled yarn was a challenge. Now, because of higher demand for recycled fiber, the supply chain has responded. “Supply of the recycled fibers is not the same limiter as it was five years ago or 10 years ago,” she says. Right now, most of it comes from cashmere waste at factories. But as Reformation and other brands collect more used clothing for recycling, post-consumer cashmere can eventually become a bigger source as well. Moving forward, the company may make some products out of a mix of recycled and “regenerative” cashmereproduced with sustainable grazing methodsbecause a small percentage of customers have wool allergies. But it also plans to continue roling out the 100% recycled material in more products. “Not every problem is going to have a technological solve,” Talbot says. “But these are the sorts of problems that we can solve. And we have seen tremendous progress in the last three years.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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