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Earlier this month, Rhett & Link went somewhere few (or maybe no?) creators have gone before: the breakfast table.
They got together with creator-focused brand development and merchandising firm Warren James to make MishMash, a 90s nostalgia cereal brand that seems like it’s begging for shelf space at Walmart under an “As seen on YouTube” sign.
MishMash isn’t in stores yet (and considering it’s priced at $10 a box right now on its DTC site, might struggle to make that leap), but Warren James CEO Saurabh Shah told my co-host Lauren Schnipper and I that it’s “looking at some retail plays.” He also says the firm has three or four more food & bev projects in development that’ll debut over the next quarter or two. Like MishMash, all of those projects come from creators. (They’re exactly the sort of projects Warren James raised $6 million to work on.)
Rhett & Link’s cereal is Warren James’s first foray into food & bev, and that meant figuring out a lot of R&D logistics. Saurabh said that $10 price point comes in part from the sheer amount of money Warren James had to put into figuring out the minutiae of making a good breakfast cereal. Things you’d never think of, like how the cereal dust falls in the packaging and whether a macaroni-shaped cereal piece can be structurally sound, are major engineering issues that take months to work out.
So why is Warren James willing to pour all this cash and all these resources into making what Saurabh calls “advanced” creator products?
Because it thinks that over the next few years, between 10 and 20% of products on store shelves will involve creators, Saurabh says. Those products will either come from creator-owned or creator-invested brands, or will have a creator spokesperson. He thinks having a creator involved–and that “As seen on YouTube/TikTok/etc” sign, like the “As seen on TV” of the infomercial era–will be key to brand success.
And you know what?
I think he’s right.
I get into all this and more with Lauren and Saurabh in the latest installment of Creator Upload. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whenever you listen. You’re gonna dig it.
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