Feastables is a Beast of an Idea

What would you do with a YouTube audience of over 34 million viewers and over 3 billion views?

Philanthropist and entrepreneur Jimmy Donaldson, AKA MrBeast, has started a hamburger delivery business, given away a million meals to the homeless, and is now heading into the snack world.

His watchword is disruption of any segment he enters. And the most significant asset he has is an unbelievable audience passionate to support him.

Instead of focusing on sustainability or a product, Jimmy emphasizes gamification and giveaway. His mission is to deliver plant-based, gluten-free chocolate bars with simple ingredients.

His new venture is called Feastables.

MrBeast has launched a snack brand rooted in gamified experiences selling chocolate bars. Donaldson grew up with Crohn’s disease, which made him aware of the need to produce high-quality snacks more accessible.

“Be on the lookout for exciting stunts and giveaways with every Feastables drop,” Donaldson says. “No other brand is creating quality snacks with a focus on fun at a mass scale, and I’m excited for everyone to experience it.”

The current product portfolio is just the beginning of a much bigger vision. Donaldson, who will serve as Feastables’ founder and creative visionary, hired Jim Murray, former president of RxBar, to lead the company’s strategy.

Feastables will hold sweepstakes totaling over 1 million dollars in prizes and offers. Ten lucky grand-prize winners will be selected to compete in a MrBeast YouTube video for the chance to win MrBeast’s Chocolate Factory.

There will also be thousands of instant-win prizes up for grabs, including a Tesla, Sea-Doos,  Beats by Dre earbuds, and dozens of other giveaways.

The chocolate bars are available at Walmart.com, with expansion in the works.

Why Audience Matters

When you have a following from 34 to 34 million people, it opens the door to serve them – not sell them but serve them.

In Jimmy’s case, he is bringing them into a Willy Wonka-like gaming world that makes snacking fun and game-like through the chocolate bar. He is over-indexing on promotion compared to other snack food brands. And with 34 million fans who adore his videos, this is a precious opportunity as he gives away everything from a Tesla to a genuine chocolate factory!

The traditional snack food company creates a product and then markets it.

Jimmy built his audience first – amused them, enticed them, and made them laugh. He served them with content they couldn’t find anywhere else.

Now he is coming back to them to become a part of his world to do good and have sweet fun – for $2.99

Prediction: Since so much of his audience is male, watch him enter the meat snack (beef jerky) market in the future and disrupt that category.

You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Watch a short video about working with me.

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I never heard of MrBeast. How about you?

I learned about him listening to one of my favorite podcasts – After Hours with Youngme Moon and her colleagues who teach at Harvard. Youngme wrote one of my favorite marketing books, Different.

MrBeast has created a fascinating new business model in the restaurant universe.

Let’s start with Mr. Beast, AKA twenty-three-year-old Jimmy Donaldson. He has almost 58 million followers on YouTube.

That’s 58 million more than me. That’s a lot of people watching him and what he does. California and Texas have about 58 million residences to give you an idea of how many subscribers follow him.

MrBeast is known for doing wild, crazy, and expensive antics online. Many of his elaborate videos cost millions to produce.

Did I say this is a 23-year-old kid with ZERO knowledge of the restaurant industry? But what intrigues me about MrBeast is a new virtual venture he started in the last year called MrBeast’s Burgers.

He sold one million burgers faster than any fast-food franchise – ever. And he did it in two months! No chain has ever come close to that kind of revenue acceleration.

Beasts and Ghosts

There are over 1,500 ghost kitchens today that are like restaurants without seating. They are kitchens that cook for virtual restaurants that only exist online. They can live in low-rent districts and serve people selling meals directly to consumers with delivery by Door Dash, Uber Eats, and the other usual suspects.

MrBeast decided to leverage his oversized brand to create a menu of MrBeast burgers and sold over one million burgers in two months. He did it by creating 300 virtual restaurants across America, almost instantly.

The business was built as an app connected to virtual kitchens all over America. His landing page/website is helpful – but the site is designed to drive people to download the app.

MrBeast leveraged his monster awareness among his audience and the ability to open a restaurant with an app and connected to virtual kitchens. I haven’t tasted his food, but he is tapping into the ability to open up a business in a novel way, given the technology available today. Jimmy’s power is his brand and his relationship with his large tribe.

Where Is the Power In This Value Chain?

Who has the leverage in the home-delivery restaurant world today?

• The kitchen?
• The delivery service?
•  The restaurant or brand?

The power exists in whoever owns the customer relationship. If you can generate the demand, the other functions will support your effort.

In this new world of virtual brands, power accrues to who can generate demand.

Keep in mind, MrBeast has no food experience other than eating food. None. Yet, he launched 300 restaurants across the U.S. simultaneously and built a multi-million dollar restaurant brand.

Jimmy works with ghost kitchens and existing restaurants that want to make his virtual brand’s menu. So, if you live in Cleveland and place an order on your app, the food might come from a pizza joint or pancake house that uses MrBeast’s brand and his recipes as a side hustle. The virtual brand creates the front end to attract demand.

Amazon and MrBeast and The Virtual Brand

Just like Amazon Basics, MrBeast has catalyzed his subscribers to go buy his burgers, instead of McDonald’s or Wendy’s. I doubt those chains felt any business loss, but this is a fantastic story for a startup in restaurants by seeing new dials and levers to turn.

Virtual brands start by building a brand or leverage an existing community, perhaps in an adjacent space. Someone like Chrissy Teigen, Rachael Ray, or Bobby Flay could instantly develop a menu that leverages this new business model. All three of them would have more concern about consistency and quality than a brand like MrBeast so they probably wouldn’t leverage this channel.

Still – think about all the sports or entertainment stars who open up and quickly close their restaurants. Leveraging a big-name celebrity or influencer like Jimmy through ghost kitchens and Door Dash opens up a new channel. Abby Wamback Salads, Shaq’s Sliders, or Venus’s Vegetarian Cuisine. Virtual brands are here to stay and watch for more individuals or companies – with big brands, playing in this home delivery foods space.

Who would you like to see leverage their virtual restaurant chain based on their tribe?

Need help rethinking your business model?

I can help.

You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Watch a short video about working with me.

Images courtesy of MrBeast

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