Deals
Behind MrBeast’s Fortune Cookie Campaign
Fortune cookies, a staple of Westernized Chinese food, are normally a message contained within a small fried cookie. Aside from an actual “fortune”, the message within the cookie may have a Chinese phrase, a saying or proverb and lucky numbers. But soon, the cookie from your Chinese take-out order may display a different message. Starting January 13, 2026, millions of fortune cookies distributed across Chinese restaurants and food delivery services in the United States and Europe began carrying custom messages promoting Beast Games Season 2: Strong vs. Smart, the Amazon Prime Video competition series created by Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast.
Campaign partner OpenFortune sells advertising inside fortune cookies. According to their research, roughly 2.5 million cookies were circulated as part of the advertising campaign, making it one of the largest physical media drops attached to a streaming series in recent memory. So, why fortune cookies? When speaking to Fortune Magazine (I swear I’m not doing this on purpose), OpenFortune’s cofounder Shawn Porat said – “The fortune cookie is one of the last truly shared media moments people still slow down for, read out loud, and share.” “It’s intimate, social, and culturally ingrained—everything advertising often isn’t anymore.”
OpenFortune’s internal data suggests that almost every fortune cookie is opened and read. In contrast to digital impressions that may last fractions of a second, the fortune cookie creates a shared moment that naturally invites reaction and discussion. In an era of advertising overload (and many options to block digital advertisements), a company that can orchestrate marketing campaigns that offer high visibility and brand recall is quite the rarity. For Beast Games, a series structured around anticipation, reveal and audience participation, that kind of exposure is important. Contestants make choices without knowing outcomes. Viewers watch tension build before results are shown. The fortune cookie mirrors the action of the series.
Jeff Housenbold, CEO of Beast Industries, described the campaign as an attempt to reach audiences “outside the feed” by embedding the show into everyday rituals rather than interrupting online behavior. Beyond placement and scale, the campaign also included targeted distribution in specific regions to maximize reach. OpenFortune worked with local restaurants and delivery networks to ensure cookies reached major cities and suburban areas alike. While the vast majority of messages promoted the series, a small percentage contained numbered messages written by MrBeast himself. Fans who discovered these rare cookies began sharing images and videos on social media, creating organic buzz that extended the campaign beyond the initial offline distribution.
The integration of physical media into a digital-first franchise reflects a growing trend among content creators. Streaming platforms and social media feeds are increasingly crowded, making audience attention more difficult to capture. By leveraging an offline channel, the campaign offered a high-visibility opportunity that could not be skipped or muted. Analysts note that for creators with established followings, physical activations like this provide a measurable way to supplement online promotion while reaching new audiences.
Early social media tracking suggests that the campaign generated engagement in multiple forms. Photos of the cookies appeared on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, with users highlighting the numbered messages or sharing the standard promotional lines. The offline interaction created a secondary wave of online content, effectively turning the fortune cookie into a hybrid touchpoint linking physical and digital marketing. The Beast Games Season 2 campaign was not without naysayers however, as some social media users have complained that the advertisement and similar marketing campaigns had taken away from the fun of fortune cookies.
Beast Industries emphasized that the campaign was designed to complement traditional digital promotion rather than replace it. By embedding the series into a familiar ritual—dining—the initiative aimed to reinforce awareness among both casual viewers and the franchise’s existing fanbase. The campaign also demonstrates how large-scale entertainment properties are experimenting with unconventional placements to maintain visibility in a competitive media environment.
Overall, the fortune cookie campaign illustrates how creators are expanding the boundaries of marketing beyond digital feeds and algorithmic targeting. By situating content in a physical medium that is widely distributed, shareable, and difficult to ignore, MrBeast and his team created a multi-layered promotional strategy that engages audiences on multiple levels. It highlights the potential for hybrid campaigns in which offline and online experiences reinforce one another, and it underscores a broader trend in entertainment marketing: attention is increasingly earned not only through reach but through strategic placement and context.
The Federal Trade Commission has set its sights on influencers once again. Starting in December, expanding on their new round of disclosure guidelines from 2023. The guidelines went into effect in 2024 and the FTC has put out a series of letters, press releases and blog posts, attempting to tighten the standard for what has to be disclosed for sponsored social media posts. This comes after years of controversies related to content creators and brand partnerships, cryptocurrency endorsements and unregulated blank on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. So what do these new guidelines mean for influencers in the U.S.?
Federal regulators have sent a clear message to brands and creators: disclosure rules in influencer marketing are not optional. On December 22nd, the FTC announced that it had sent warning letters to 10 companies regarding potential violations related to the agency’s new Consumer Review Rule, related to potentially “fake or false consumer reviews, consumer testimonials, or celebrity testimonials.” Fines could be up to $53,088 per violation. Legal analysis by the law news publication The National Law Review earlier this month emphasized that disclosures in social media remain a central enforcement focus, particularly as content moves fluidly across feeds, stories, and short-form video. Essentially the FTC wants someone to be able to tell if a post is sponsored or an ad when they scroll past it.
For years, many creators relied on brand tags, brief in-content references or hashtags blended into a long caption to signify a sponsored or partnered post. Regulators are signalling that they are increasingly skeptical of those approaches, especially when those notices are easy to miss and easy to potentially misinterpret. Platforms are also responding, with YouTube, Instagram and TikTok labeling branded or promotional content in the past few years. Additional layers to sponsorship exist as well. An article by daily Legal news outlet JD Supra made clear that disclosure is not limited to obvious ad reads with scripts provided by a brand. A creator who casually praises a product while participating in a broader paid partnership may still need to disclose that relationship. The focus is on context that would matter to viewers, not on how formal the arrangement looks behind the scenes.
The placement of where you disclose that a post has been sponsored is also an issue. With shorts on social media, a disclosure that appears only in the description field can easily go unseen, especially when videos are reposted or embedded elsewhere. Regulators have signaled that disclosures should appear within the content itself in a way that stands out, whether spoken in the video or displayed as readable on-screen text. If viewers are unlikely to see it, it is unlikely to satisfy the standard. A related, recent study on tobacco marketing found that influencers were one of the main groups who failed to disclose business relationships with tobacco companies, noting that “influencer-related posts lacked proper FTC-mandated disclosures of financial relationships”.
Livestreaming adds another layer of complexity. Audiences join and leave at different points, and many viewers skip the opening minutes of a broadcast. A single disclosure at the beginning of a two-hour stream may not reach a significant portion of the audience. Recent guidance suggests that repeating disclosures during the stream, or maintaining a visible on-screen notice, is a more reliable approach. The expectation reflects how live content is actually consumed rather than how it might look on paper.
The practical effect of these developments is easy to understand. For creators, when money, free products, or commissions are involved, being straightforward is a legal requirement, even if the post is styled as a casual recommendation. The current round of warnings suggests regulators are less concerned with punishing technical mistakes and more focused on patterns that make paid influence look organic. If sponsorship is part of the business model, it has to be visible in the content itself.
After announcing a joint partnership in December, Starbucks has launched their collaboration with MrBeast’s for Beast Games Season 2, using the coffee giant as a core element of his franchise, from promotional material and signature drinks, to incorporation in the series itself. The deal was structured less like a one-time sponsorship and more like a brand-franchise extension. For Beast Games Season 2, MrBeast and Starbucks have turned the coffee chain into a narrative prop and retail spin-off of one of the internet’s biggest creator franchises.
Beast Games, MrBeast’s reality competition series produced with Amazon, returned to Prime Video this January, with 200 contestants and a 5 million dollar prize. Season 2 builds off of a viewership in the tens of millions from the first season. MrBeast’s deal with Amazon Prime has helped him solidify his production house, Beast Studios, and cements his leap from YouTube spectacle to global television.
For the new season, Starbucks has signed on to power the show by installing a full Starbucks presence inside Beast City, the custom-built compound where contestants live and compete, with 24/7 access to drinks and food during filming. Competitors also receive surprise rewards from the chain built into specific challenges, which adds Starbucks moments directly into the story beats of the series.
The centerpiece of the collaboration is the Cannon Ball Drink, a limited time Starbucks Refreshers lemonade drink with Strawberry Açai and Mango Dragon Fruit flavors, inspired by and created on set. Featuring multiple players of flavor and color, the drink appears in a Cannon Ball challenge during a crossover episode with Survivor. The Cannon Ball Drink launched at Starbucks stores across the U.S., giving viewers a way to participate in the show.
Beyond the show itself, Starbucks is leaning into cross-platform activations. MrBeast has posted content about the collaboration across social media, including a cameo from Starbucks Global Creator Josiah. Starbucks launched their Global Coffee Creator program in 2025. For the collaboration with MrBeast, the brand is treating their deal as part of a broader turnaround strategy to entice younger customers, with content across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, in addition to the show.
This partnership shows how creator-led intellectual property is now mature enough to support sponsorship structures that resemble sports leagues or major entertainment properties. Beast Games is backed by a large production budget, offers substantial prize money, and streams in many territories through Prime Video, which gives Starbucks global reach and repeat exposure over a full season instead of a single viral upload.
The Starbucks and MrBeast alignment also shows how brands are treating creators as media owners with distinct demographic reach, not only as on screen talent. Beast Games’ audience skews under 30, overlapping with Starbucks’ priority Gen Z and Gen Alpha segments, and the show’s digital promotion complements the chain’s existing advertising spend without the constraints of traditional television. This partnership fits into a broader pattern in MrBeast’s business strategy as Beast Industries grows into a multi vertical company. From snack brand launches to platform exclusive series, the organization structures partnerships around control of intellectual property, data, and distribution, with brand partners plugging into that ecosystem instead of owning it outright.
If Beast Games delivers on its second season ambitions, the Starbucks collaboration is likely to become a recurring feature rather than a one time experiment. Strong performance would validate the idea that major food and beverage brands can treat creator-led formats as anchor properties for seasonal limited time offers, loyalty programs, and in store storytelling. As more creator franchises reach multi season, multi platform scale, the Starbucks and MrBeast blueprint, with deep in world integration, co-developed product, global streaming distribution, and persistent social content, offers a playbook for negotiating deals that look less like sponsored segments and more like co-produced entertainment businesses.
FIFA has named TikTok its first-ever Preferred Platform, setting the stage for what could be the most creator-forward global sporting events in history and establishing a relationship that could change the way major events like the World Cup are covered. The partnership, announced this week, runs through the end of 2026 and positions creators as essential to how the tournament will be consumed and shared worldwide. “FIFA’s goal is to share the exhilaration of the FIFA World Cup 2026 with as many fans as possible, and we can’t think of a better way to further that mission during the biggest event in sports history than to have TikTok as the tournament’s Preferred Platform”, said FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström, in a press release from TikTok.
The deal expands on the collaboration between TikTok and FIFA during the 2023 Women’s World Cup and the 2025 Club World Cup, both of which were wildly popular. Under this new agreement, TikTok will host an immersive FIFA World Cup 2026 hub featuring match highlights, ticketing information, custom stickers, filters, and gamification features. The agreement builds off of TikTok’s recently announced GamePlan product. But the most notable aspect of the partnership announcement is the global creator program. According to TikTok, the program will “provide a select group of global TikTok creators with game-changing access to incredible behind-the-scenes moments – such as press conferences and training sessions – and in the process, give fans unique, relatable perspectives on the FIFA World Cup experience”. A broader tier of creators will also gain permission to co-create content using FIFA’s archival footage, a rare opportunity as sports footage is often difficult to license.
“Soccer has experienced explosive global growth on TikTok over the past few years, and as FIFA’s first-ever Preferred Platform we’re excited for fans to experience the FIFA World Cup 2026 beyond the 90 minutes,” said James Stafford, Global Head of Content, TikTok. FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström framed the partnership as an evolution in how football is shared. “This is an innovative and creative collaboration that will connect more fans across the globe to the FIFA World Cup in unprecedented ways, bringing them behind the curtain and closer to the action than ever before.”
This deal marks a major shift for content creators and their coverage of sporting events. For years, creators covering professional sports had to clip broadcast footage under fair use, react outside of stadiums and arenas and wait for official footage to be released, potentially risking legal action and takedowns. This deal formalizes a change in process for live event coverage, where creators are granted access and encouraged to cover events and collaborate as part of a media strategy, mirroring how traditional broadcasting networks negotiate rights packages. The only differences are that the “network” is TikTok, and individual creators will benefit more because of the nature of social media.
According to TikTok internal data mentioned in an announcement about GamePlan in late December, fans who watch sports content on TikTok are 42 percent more likely to tune in to live matches. The company has also noted that 59 percent of users find sports content on TikTok more entertaining than the actual games. For FIFA, partnering with TikTok helps expand their audience and also build their revenue. While FIFA fans on TikTok will be able to stream portions of matches live and access special content, broadcasters and brands will be able to monetize content through access to ad revenue. FIFA also benefits from an agreement with TikTok to “implement anti-piracy policies that support and protect FIFA’s intellectual property.”
The 2026 World Cup kicks off in June across North America, with games in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. This is the first time the tournament will be hosted by three countries. With 48 teams competing, the event is already being positioned as the largest in World Cup history. Details on how creators will be selected for the top-tier access program have not been announced, though TikTok’s existing relationships with sports creators and its GamePlan infrastructure suggest the company already has a pipeline in mind. If the largest sporting event on the planet is willing to treat creators as primary content partners, other institutions may follow.
