How Dr. Pepper Nailed a Wide-Ranging Promo with Only 3 Items

Are you all familiar with an up-and-coming musician named Yung Gravy? If you're not, but you enjoy the mysterious taste of Dr. Pepper, you'll learn about him soon.

Dr. Pepper and Yung Gravy have formed a mutually beneficial partnership to promote a new Dr. Pepper flavor — strawberries and cream. To celebrate, Yung Gravy just dropped a new single called "Strawberries and Creaming'" on TIkTok and YouTube.

To go with the song, the two just collaborated on co-branded merchandise available on the NTWRK platform, which has served as the hub for just about every co-branded food and drink merchandise drop for the last few years.

"We are thrilled to have teamed up with Yung Gravy to create this track inspired by our new product," said senior vice president of Dr Pepper brand marketing John Alvarado in a press release. "Yung Gravy's playful energy and distinct persona have captivated his audience, and we can't wait to see what Dr Pepper and Yung Gravy fans think of the new track and merchandise line, which leans into both our brand and Yung Gravy's creativity and uniqueness."

The three-piece merchandise collection includes a gravy boat, a silk-collared shirt modeled after the ones Yung Gravy frequently wears, and vinyl-inspired drink coasters.

It's a pretty fun little collection, and touches on multiple aspects of these two brands: gravy, obviously; drink coasters that look like records; and an apparel option that has that if-you-know-you-know quality of looking like the ones the artist wears.

Also, they only made 23 bundles, which represents the 23 flavors in Dr. Pepper.

Overall, this promotion captures a lot and hits a lot of touchpoints while being fairly minimal on its surface. It's only three products, and there are only 23 of each. But, by debuting on TikTok and then shifting over to YouTube, it hits a wide audience of young people who already like either Yung Gravy or Dr. Pepper (or both), and it pairs that digital experience with the permanence of products.