Beyoncé dropped her highly anticipated country-themed album at midnight, and brands across social media are donning their cowboy hats and breaking out the cowboy emoji in celebration.

“Cowboy Carter,” which features country music icons such as Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, and an album cover of Beyoncé riding a horse clad in red-white-and-blue Western wear, a white cowboy hat and matching cowboy boots, has left the “Beyhive” buzzing with excitement on Instagram, TikTok, Threads and X (formerly Twitter). The album quickly shot to the top of the trending topics on X and Threads as fans enthusiastically shared their thoughts on Beyoncé’s two dozen new tracks or proclaimed they were entering their “cowboy eras.”

Dozens of brands quickly joined the cowboy craze, too. Verizon, which partnered with Beyoncé to announce the release of “Cowboy Carter” during the company’s Super Bowl spot, made an X post nodding to the ad, writing, “Keep breaking the internet @beyonce, we can handle it.” 

Cash App highlighted its inclusion in the new song “Desert Eagle,” captioning a screenshot of the lyric mentioning the brand with, “wake up, new Beyonce is out.” A handful of other brands also cameo in “Cowboy Carter,” including Lexus, which sponsored Beyoncé’s “Renaissance World Tour” last summer and is name-dropped in her song “Texas Hold ‘Em.”

Levi’s, too, is spotlighted on the album with a track named “Levii’s Jeans.” The double i’s, a recurring theme across the album’s song titles, reflect the fact that “Cowboy Carter” is the second album in a trilogy that also includes Beyoncé’s previous album, “Renaissance.” The brand celebrated its shout-out on her album in a comment on Beyoncé’s Instagram post revealing the tracklist earlier this week, writing, “The queen has spoken 🐝👑 *changes our name to leviis*”

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Levi’s made good on its promise, too, changing its display name to Levii’s and its bio to “FKA [formerly known as] Levi’s 🐝.”

A slew of other brands commented on that post, too, from Walmart, which wrote “Cowgirl mode activated 🤠,” to Oreo, which similarly declared “this cookie is goin’ country 🤠.” 

Others announced their entrance into their cowboy era in posts on X and Threads. Chili’s, for example, requested its followers “please refer to us as COWBOY CHILI’S from here on out,” while Starbucks joked that Beyoncé’s album had the brand saying “howdy” to its baristas instead of “hello.”

Many brands jumped in on the buzz around the country-inspired album by slapping cowboy hats or other Western accessories onto their products. Oscar Mayer saddled up its Weinermobile, while Ulta Beauty plopped white cowboy hats on Western-themed products. 

And, of course, Beyoncé’s own brand, Cécred, hopped on the trend, dressing several of its hair care products in cowboy hats and the red-white-and-blue sash Beyoncé wears on the album cover. 

Read more about Cécred here

Even Merriam-Webster went Western, posting an illustration of one of its dictionaries dressed in a cowboy hat adorned with a sheriff’s badge and white cowboy boots.

Pizza Hut upped the ante, putting a giant red cowboy hat on one of its restaurants, adding, “and for our act ii we will be turning all of our Huts into Cowboy Huts.”

A few beauty and fashion brands, including NYX, Sephora and American Eagle, assembled collections of their products that matched the cowboy aesthetic of “Cowboy Carter.” 

Saks Fifth Avenue shared behind-the-scenes footage of its employees leaning into the Western aesthetic with fringe-sleeved tops and cowboy hats and boots, writing, “When it’s Friday in the office, but also 🤠🐝🎶 day.”

Other brands took their posts beyond Western-inspired fashion to embrace another element of the cowboy lifestyle: horse riding. Elmo shared a photo of him on horseback with the caption, “This ain’t Texas, this is Sesame Street! 🐴🤠😂❤️,” a reference to the track “Texas Hold ‘Em.” 

Popeyes, too, celebrated the cowboy lifestyle, sharing a video of a person donning a cowboy hat riding a horse to pick up one of the brand’s “Cowboy Combo Meals” and another of a person ordering the menu item with on-screen text stating they’re “entering our cowboy era.” 
 

Beyoncé's album also drove a wedge between rival rideshare apps Lyft and Uber. After teasing a partnership with the artist with an X post yesterday that featured a video of a white horse, Uber revealed that it would be offering a 16% discount to Uber riders, a reference to the “Cowboy Carter” song “16 Carriages.” 

Lyft quickly swooped in to capitalize on the disappointment some members of the Beyhive expressed after expecting a more substantial partnership between Uber and Beyoncé (especially in the wake of Verizon’s Super Bowl ad). Lyft responded to its rival’s X post with a meme of Barbie sleeping from one of the animated “Barbie” films, writing, “our marketing team tonight.” It also one-upped Uber’s discount code with its own 50% off coupon, which it later increased to 60%.  

Brands have quickly jumped on viral album drops and announcements over the past few months, with dozens of brands creating their own versions of the cover of Taylor Swift’s upcoming album “The Tortured Poets Department” and others adding their brands to the hot pink cityscape of Nick Minaj’s album “Pink Friday 2.” 

And with Swift’s album set to release in just three weeks, marketers are undoubtedly preparing to pivot from their “cowboy eras” to the somber black-and-white aesthetic of “The Tortured Poets Department.”