Restaurants Name Items After Celebrities in a Pandemic-Era Play for Young Visitors

Four years ago, sneaker enthusiast and popular YouTuber Brad Hall shot a late-night video of himself at the wheel of his car as he headed to a McDonald’s drive-thru. The endearingly neurotic Hall confessed that he was depressed that he missed his chance to buy the latest edition of Air Jordan 1s. Hall was opting for the next best thing he could think of: ordering a McJordan Special. Unfortunately for him, the burger named after NBA great Michael Jordan hadn’t been on McDonald’s menu boards for 24 years. But no matter. To his half million subscribers, Hall methodically demonstrated a workaround. Order a cheeseburger with no ketchup, add bacon and swap out the regular bun for a sesame-seed one. Then ask for a side of Chicken McNuggets barbecue sauce and dump it under the bun yourself. “Close ’er up,” he instructs, “and you’ve got yourself a McJordan.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI9j-aMsSJ0 Odds are there aren’t an abundance of people fanatical enough to go to the lengths that Hall did just to get their hands on a fast-food burger, let alone an extinct one. (Even though a bottle of McJordan BBQ sauce did surface on eBay in 2012, priced at $10,000.) If Hall’s video is proof of anything, it’s this: If consumers will buy shoes, clothes and perfume named after celebrities, they’ll probably buy menu items named after them, too. And, as it turns out, several brands happen to be testing this hypothesis. On Sept. 2, Dunkin’ announced The Charli, a limited-time beverage named after Charli D’Amelio, whose TikTok dance videos exceed 30 million views each. The very next day, McDonald’s revealed that it had inked a partnership deal with rapper Travis Scott, whose favorite meal combo sold under his name for $6 until earlier this week. Without missing a beat, McDonald's just announced a new collaboration, this time with Latin pop star J Balvin (the "Prince of Reggaeton"), whose J Balvin Meal will be on the menu boards until Nov. 1. Meanwhile, starting on Oct. 1, delivery-only restaurant marketplace Nextbite began operating a new concept called HotBox developed with Wiz Khalifa. With locations promised for Pittsburgh, Houston, New York and other major cities, HotBox will feature a complete “top shelf munchie menu” developed by the rapper, songwriter and actor, including the Taylor Gang turkey burger and a Mile-High dark chocolate brownie. HotBox by Wiz is a ghost kitchen (read: delivery only) restaurant that launched Oct. 1. Then there’s 16-unit Umami burger, whose long-running Artist Series has featured limited-time menu items developed by notable personages. including model Cindy Crawford, social media heartthrob Cameron Dallas and, most recently, Jon Bon Jovi. The 1980s hair metal legend’s menu contribution—the Hampton Burger—does not bear the Bon Jovi family name but, in the words of the rocker’s son Jesse, it was “inspired by our time in the Hamptons.” Suddenly, celebrity-branded food is popping up far and wide. The question is: Why now? Instagram heartthrob Cameron Dallas was among the celebs to self-brand a burger at Umami. Eat like a famous person Food named after famous people is hardly a new idea. Washington, D.C.-based Good Stuff Eatery still has a Prez Obama burger on the menu four years after Obama left office. Indeed, the idea of naming dishes after famous people is even older than 1992’s McJordan Burger. Beef Wellington takes its name from the Duke of Wellington, who had a roast named for him after defeating Napoleon in 1815. Eggs Benedict, first served at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1894, bears the name of Lemuel Benedict, a stockbroker who asked the kitchen to whip him up a breakfast that would cure his hangover. But the celebrity food naming going on now is, of course, a marketing contrivance, and one aimed at luring customers (usually young ones) to a specific restaurant chain. And as such, it relies on a time-honored formula that consumers will buy and try almost anything with a famous name attached to it. In 2011, President Obama took some of his staffers to D.C.'s Good Stuff Eatery. Now, there's a burger named after him on the menu. “Celebrities are celebrities for a reason,” observed Gary Stibel, founder and CEO of The New England Consulting Group. “People look up to them and people want to be like them: wear what they’re wearing, drive what they’re driving and eat the food they eat.” That certainly seems to be the idea. As McDonald’s says of its Scott meal: “Now, for $6, you can eat just like Travis.” But will consumers order a menu item just because it happens to carry a celebrity name? Is it really that simple? "Absolutely," said Drayton Martin, vp of brand stewardship for Dunkin’. “Fans have been excited to order The Charli since it was first introduced in early September. Since it’s her go-to order and officially on our menu, fans wanted to specifically go and order this in support and to see what it really tastes like.” The pandemic effect Timing seems to be another factor. While the Covid-19 crisis has led to a bump in takeout and delivery, overall it has brutalized the restaurant business. According to Revenue Management Solutions, September foot traffic at fast-food restaurants was down year over year by 10%-15%. Sales hovered between flat and a 5% increase. The National Restaurant Association has said that a whopping 40% of operators aren’t confident they can stay afloat over the next six months. This means that nearly anything to bring more feet in the door (or up to the window) is something chain operators are willing to try. “Businesses of all types, from CVS through McDonald’s, they need more frequency,” said John Gordon, founder and principal of Pacific Management Consulting Group. And when a chain partners with a social media star, he added, “a particular demographic is in the bag, so to speak.” Unlike celebrity endorsements of generations past that sometimes left consumers scratching their heads over the fit—did Paris Hilton really eat at Carl’s Jr.?—these recent promos are more credible. Before making it big in the music biz, Scott did hit Mickey D’s for lunch and probably still does. “Travis is a true McDonald’s fan, having grown up visiting our restaurants in Houston,” McDonald’s CMO Morgan Flatley said in a statement. Last year, Chipotle rolled out the David Dobrik Burrito named after the 24-year-old YouTube star whose affinity for the fast-casual Mexican chain was well known. Chipotle's David Dobrik Burrito set a sales record. “[This] marked the first time we made a celebrity order available on the Chipotle app and Chipotle.com,” digital marketing vp Tressie Lieberman told Adweek. “David is a superfan who gets Chipotle multiple times a week, and we knew his massive Gen Z following would jump at the opportunity to eat like their favorite vlogger.” And, apparently, they did. Lieberman added that the Dobrik burrito “set a new single-day record for digital sales.” That the menu items in question happen to be things that these influencers order anyway provides an added operational advantage for these restaurants. Research and development doesn’t have to mess around with developing and testing a totally new menu item; all that’s necessary is a small modification to an old one. The Charli, for instance, is nothing more than a standard Dunkin’ cold brew with whole milk and three pumps of caramel swirl—the same beverage D’Amelio ordered long before headquarters phoned her with an endorsement offer. For all the hullabaloo surrounding the J Balvin Meal, all it is is a Big Mac with no pickles, medium fries and an Oreo McFlurry, which is, according to McDonald's corporate, Balvin's regular meal when he's on tour. Finally, there’s the simple youth effect at work. With the notable exception of a 58-year-old Bon Jovi, the stars lending their names to these menu items are very young: Scott is 29, Dobrik is 24, and D’Amelio is 16. Not only are younger consumers more likely follow what influencers do or say, but they also tend to have a more inclusive and diversified cultural awareness. The old famous hazards That’s not to say that these deals are all easy and risk-free. As has been reported, a sizable portion of McDonald’s franchisee community opposed the Travis Scott partnership because Scott, for all his popularity, doesn’t always line up with the chain’s historical efforts to be a family-friendly place to eat. But there’s no denying the fact that Scott, who has sold more than 45 million records and boasts north of 33 million Instagram followers, can get customers into McDonald’s. Travis Scott is past the point where he has to make his own McDonald's runs, but the chain says he's still a regular. The chain has not commented on the meal’s performance, but Gordon ventured that the Golden Arches is probably pleased with signing the star. “McDonald’s has picked up a lot of business, and that is the ultimate signal,” he said. “And I will tell you that September is the second slowest month in the northern hemisphere.” So why aren’t more chains rushing to name a dish after today’s hottest YouTuber? Possibly because, as fruitful as the tactic can be, it’s also self-limiting. “It does have a downside,” Stibel said. “If a few restaurant chains have a few celebrities and they do it carefully, that can be very smart. But if 100 restaurants have 100 celebrities, that can get a little old very, very fast. Customers are smart. They can see through that.” Meanwhile, customer Brad Hall—the one who souped up an ordinary cheeseburger into a McJordan—has returned to McDonald’s to try the Travis Scott meal. “It is really cool to be able to order the exact food that Travis orders,” he said in a video posted last month. And in hopes of having his Travis Scott meal last beyond Sept. 8, Hall vacuum sealed it in a plastic bag.