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In September, Coca-Cola and Oreo, a Mondelez brand, declared themselves “besties” for a collaboration where Coke released Oreo-flavored soda and Oreo released Coke-flavored cookies. Shortly after the announcement, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey and Mondelez CEO Dirk Van De Put exchanged friendship bracelets and took to TikTok to post Shein hauls.
OK, we made up the previous sentence, but here’s why: To some observers, particularly those with the blush of youth, evoking “besties” may sound like the brands were trying too hard to strike a chord with Gen Zers.
“Marketers were told that to survive in today’s culture, they must keep up,” Gen Z research and strategy firm Dcdx wrote in a post about the Coke-Oreos besties approach on Substack. “Keep up with the trends, the memes, and the moments commanding attention.”
The post went on to warn that “the hunt for momentary relevance” is a “slippery slope that not only risks looking old or outdated but imposes a serious long-term side effect.”
A poll of 92 members of what Dcdx calls its “futurehuman partners,” who agency CEO and founder Andrew Roth told Retail Brew make up a sort of focus group of Gen Zers it surveys, asked this: “Brands saying ‘bestie’ in their marketing, cool or cringe?”
More than 8 out of 10 respondents (85%) thought brands saying “bestie” was cringe; just 15% considered it cool.
“We believe not all brands should try and hop on new trends,” Dcdx declared on Substack.
For demure audiences only: We asked Roth to shed light on how much brands are riding some recent TikTok virality, and he used the database from social-media insight agency Tubular Labs to respond.
Concerning the “demure” phenomenon, for the 90 days ending October 4, there were 51,400 videos that used the word in a hashtag or description, and 6,311, or 12.3%, were from brands.
As for “bestie” (and “besties”), in the same period, 39,800 used at least one version of the term in a hashtag or description, and 3,907, or just under 10%, were from brands.
One of them is a September 25 TikTok video from Chewy in which a woman and her dog, Titan, rank the retailer’s Halloween pet costumes, and had received 32.8 million views at the time of publication.
Neither cringe nor cool, Titan’s favorite costume—a bucket of fried chicken—is #adorbs.