👖 How Kendrick Lamar Helped Sell Celine Jeans

Whether you liked Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance or not, it was definitively a cultural moment. And cultural impact can translate into sales.

You might have seen the flared jeans that Kendrick was wearing during his performance, which actually come from the brand Celine.

Google search volume for “flared jeans” went up 5000% in the 48 hours after Kendrick’s performance and the volume of mentions of Celine on X went up over 4000%. The jeans sold out on Celine’s online store and Launchmetrics estimated the show drove $2.3 Million in media impact value for Celine.

So…embedding your brand in these cultural moments can be powerful!

Brands know this and even if they didn’t directly participate in the Super Bowl — they try being part of the conversation. I’ve seen brands ranging from Nestlé to Waitrose & Partners post TikToks of their employees doing a dance challenge to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”

While that’s not necessarily a bad idea, the biggest value goes to the brands who strategically place themselves within cultural moments, rather than just reacting to them.

Being culturally relevant isn’t just posting “Montoya, Por Favor” on your social media accounts or having the employees do the “Not Like Us” dance challenge on TikTok. It’s about having a strategy, not just getting excited about the tactics.