The 'Rick and Morty' marketing multiverse: a definitive guide

When “Rick and Morty” crash landed on Adult Swim in 2013, its niche humor and wacky brand of science fiction didn’t seem primed for mainstream success. In its second season, however, the show about an alcoholic, mad-scientist grandfather, Rick, his anxious grandson, Morty, and their satirical, inter-dimensional adventures began building an immense fandom among young adults. As the show rocketed to the top of ratings lists, pulled in two Emmys for “Outstanding Animated Program” and ranked second among most-pirated shows during the pandemic, brand partnerships became an inevitability, just like for most long-running TV shows. But "Rick and Morty" has proven to pull them off better than most, with brands in categories ranging from snacks to movies gaining major notice with creative tie-ins. The latest stunt comes from Wendy's, which last month temporarily slapped the name "Morty's" on one of its restaurants. To uncover secrets behind the show's collaboration success—and what other brands can learn from it—Ad Age recently caught up with executives tied to the show, as well as multiple brands that have struck deals over the years. Adult Swim’s marketing pillars include an authentic understanding of the show’s voice, complete creative collaboration, new and expansive ideas and, most importantly, gratitude to the fans, says Jill King, senior VP of marketing and partnerships for Adult Swim, Cartoon Network and Boomerang. Below, a deeper look at what has worked and why: And Rick said, 'Let there be partnerships' “‘Rick and Morty’ has been an anchor program for us for a long time and I'm thrilled that each year we do interesting and unique things with them,” Katrina Cukaj, who leads ad sales and partnerships at WarnerMedia, told Ad Age. “IP is probably the most important thing that we have in this company. And it's really about bringing our clients and their brands close to those fans, which are pretty sought after.” From traditional video spots to award-winning campaigns and immersive pop-ups, “Rick and Morty” partnerships have run the gamut as the brand discovered its marketing identity over time, including intervention from prolific director Ridley Scott, restaurant riots, and lots and lots of Pickle Rick products. “Rick and Morty” first disrupted the advertising universe on Nov. 30, 2015 when a video for Carl’s Jr & Hardee’s premiered for broadcast —and later on social media—just over a month after the show’s season two finale. The spot shows Rick bursting into Morty’s bedroom at 4 a.m. proclaiming “Morty, wake up, we’re in a Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s commercial right now.” Grotesquely animated versions of the fast food restaurant’s burgers follow Rick, sloshing gore-like sauce all over Morty’s room to his vociferous dismay. Reddit user Sperminator6969 reported that on YouTube, Adult Swim’s original posting collected “a million views in 24 hours for a 30-second commercial. Hardee's really got their money's worth on this one.” WarnerMedia shared that the spot generated 32.4 million impressions during a one-week social flight and that branded posts related to the campaign generated at least 17 times more engagement than the average post from the year’s top 500 consumer brands. In October 2017, the same month as the show’s season three finale, “Rick and Morty” debuted a snarkily similar ad for Old Spice’s spray deodorants. This time, Rick’s early morning intrusion into Morty’s bedroom was accompanied by anthropomorphized canisters spraying mist. Rick’s overtly scripted delivery (he literally pulls out a script) is notably less enthusiastic than in the Carl’s Jr. ad. He even counts a stack of cash in the video’s conclusion. This advertisement initially shocked users on Reddit and fan sites because of a brief moment when an Old Spice can gobbles up Butter Robot, a fan-favorite, lard-dispensing character (this ad wasn't Butter Robot's demise—keep reading to discover its fate). Brands started noticing “Rick and Morty” when its popularity erupted in season two, but there was a long learning process to figuring out the perfect formula for authentic brand partnerships—until they struck gold, says King. “When I realized what we had and how it was changing," King told Ad Age, "was I think around the time of ‘Alien: Covenant.’” In space, no one can hear you wubba lubba dub dub “I recall getting a call from the [Twentieth Century Fox] studio,” says King. “And the studio said, ‘We've got to make something happen with ‘Rick and Morty’ in support of ‘Alien’ because Ridley Scott wants it to happen. He’s a hardcore fan of ‘Rick and Morty’ and he wants to work with the show unit and he wants to do something amazing in support of ‘Alien.’ So, that was a turning point for me.” The video that emerged from the partnership is more like a mini episode of “Rick and Morty” than the traditional nature of the Carl’s Jr. and Old Spice spots. The “Alien: Covenant” custom animation premiered on May 13, 2017, a week ahead of the film’s release. Rick is flying his Space Cruiser, Morty in the passenger seat, when a distress signal sounds. “Morty, can you hit the ignore button on that?” Rick asks. Morty demands they investigate, which leads them to dock on one of the derelict extraterrestrial space crafts from the “Alien” franchise. Almost immediately, a Facehugger, the infamous insect-like creature that leeches onto human faces, attacks Rick, but quickly dies. “It died of toxicity due to all the drugs and alcohol swirling about in my system,” Rick discovers. Morty suggests this may be a rare pro-drug advertisement. Within its first 30 days on social media, the video was the second top-performing branded post across all verticals and 46% of engagements came from shares, according to WarnerMedia. “That was the first one for sure that really blew up,” says King. Play has no li-Morts The show’s next custom ad continued the mini-episode trend of the “Alien: Covenant” spot, this time for the launch of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s highly anticipated PlayStation game “Death Stranding” in early November 2019. The custom content was created in collaboration with the game’s creator and director Hideo Kojima and “Rick and Morty” co-creator and lead voice actor Justin Roiland. “There was so much fandom around ‘Death Stranding.’ There's so much fandom around ‘Rick and Morty,’" says King. “And outside of the fandom mashup, is the anticipation.” When the game was originally announced at the E3 gaming convention in 2016, curious enthusiasm erupted among Kojima’s fans. “Death Stranding” was nominated for numerous most-anticipated game awards in 2017 and 2018 and topped lists of 2019’s most-hyped games even though it didn’t have a release date until later that year. “I was like, ‘Listen, the only way we're going to make this work is if the creator of ‘Death Stranding’ Kojima and Justin [Roiland] would get together and talk about their vision for this piece. And we made that happen,” King says. The video finds Rick and Morty trudging through a gray-rubble wasteland. “What are all these ghosts?” Rick exclaims. “Uh those are the ‘Death Stranding,’ Rick,” Morty replies. Rick admits he wasn’t paying attention to Kojima’s instructions for the ad. Morty draws Rick’s attention to a baby encased in some sort of tube strapped to his chest, the “Death Stranding” character Bridge Baby. Since this is an ad for a video game, Rick suggests Bridge Baby is some sort of power-up and that they should eat it. Users on the “Rick and Morty” subreddit reacted positively to the ad. RedRose_Belmont wrote, “Why is Death Stranding doing so well?? Because ‘Rick and Morty’ bitch!” and Gofish3232 wrote (alarmingly), “Eating babies, yes that’s the life for me. They taste so fine, they’re good with wine, can feed my family of three.” The “Rick and Morty” promo for “Death Stranding” upped the hype when it premiered the week of the game’s release and just before the premiere of the show’s fourth season. It also took the intensely collaborative nature of the “Alien: Covenant” partnership to the next level by introducing more than just the custom video animation. The partnership also featured interactive installations at the 2019 Adult Swim Festival, the channel’s ambitious yearly event that combines the best of music festivals and fan conventions (and launched in 2018 with a Run the Jewels music video featuring the heroes of “Rick and Morty” and a huge Morty slide). A head-hole photo-op allowed attendees to place themselves in Morty’s hands as the “Death Stranding” Bridge Baby character and The Rickflector, an immersive experience where participants created an avatar and saved the world through various mini-games, included a screening of the custom animation as well. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ramiro Martinez (@paisathrash) In late November 2020, “Rick and Morty” teamed with PlayStation again to promote the perpetually-sold-out PlayStation 5 console. The custom ad spot resembled the show’s early partnerships, mocking the very concept of a sponsored partnership. Morty nervously rambles through talking points about the console’s speed and advanced controller technology as Rick counts the money it’s implied he earned from the ad. A particularly funny moment finds Morty standing in front of the animated PlayStation 5 to which Rick scolds, “Morty, don’t block the console! They wanted that in the shot!” Although a callback to the Old Spice and Carl’s Jr. partnerships, this time around the brand has settled into it’s metatextual, unexpected humor. The advertisement reflects the personality of the show while still displaying the product in an untraditional way. It’s the final Mort-down In 2020, “Rick and Morty” landed an ad at the Super Bowl of marketing: The Super Bowl. The show teamed with Pringles to create a custom spot for the most-watched live television event in America. King says that when considering brand partnerships, they “have to bring something to the table that we couldn't already otherwise do...Like we got to the Super Bowl because of Pringles. That's the marketer's dream.” The Super Bowl ad begins in classic “Rick and Morty” partnership fashion with Rick commenting on how little sponsored ads pay—this time to his granddaughter Summer. Right on cue, Morty enters with multiple tubes of Pringles and expresses the joy of stacking different Pringles flavors to make new ones. Rick football tackles Morty to the floor, knocking his face off to reveal Morty has been replaced by a Pringles robot. Rick tears away a section of wallpaper to discover the Pringles logo beneath it. “We’re trapped in a Pringles commercial!” Rick exclaims. An army of Pringles-robot Mortys charge onto screen to the screams of Rick and Summer. But the video ad, now the No. 1 most-liked Super Bowl ad on YouTube, was just the icing on top of the cake for this yearlong campaign, which gained 1.2 billion earned media impressions and a Bronze Lion in Media at the 2020-2021 Cannes Lions awards. Pringles integrated its Super Bowl assets into “Pocket Mortys,” a free-to-play game similar to Pokemon that challenges players to collect, train and battle wild Morty variants through gyms and boss battles. Since its launch in 2016, the game has 32.1 million downloads on iOS and Android devices. Even five years post-release, “Pocket Mortys” has over 100,000 daily active users and has been integrated into multiple “Rick and Morty” brand partnerships. The MortyBot character from Pringles’ Super Bowl spot entered the game as well as Pringle items that players could collect and combine into the “Spicy BBQ Stack” to restore HP. Pringles released a “Pickle Rick” flavored chip at the time of the Super Bowl and then in September of 2020, expanded the custom product line to also include “Honey Mustard Morty” and “Look at Me! I’m Cheddar & Sour Cream!” The “Pickle Rick” Pringles became the No. 3 trending item on eBay. "The response to the Pringles and 'Rick and Morty' partnership was literally out of this world," says Gareth Maguire, Pringles' senior director of marketing. "From the first announcement to the expanded collection of limited-edition flavors inspired by the hit show – including Pickle Rick Pringles – it was clear how passionate, engaged and loyal 'Rick and Morty' fans are. Creative ways to unlock endless dimensions of flavor is part of the Pringles brand DNA, and the collaboration with 'Rick and Morty' did just that." Pringles also sponsored the 2020 Adult Swim Convention, which featured a virtual cosplay cup and “Rick and Morty” viewing party and talent Q&A, and offered contests for free “Rick and Morty” Pringles products at the Adult Swim Festival in 2020. “With Pringles, it was the unexpected nature of us showing up at the Super Bowl with them,” says King. “And long term, because we built out three flavors across a year. So, it builds up anticipation. People are screenshotting shelves at Walmart when the next flavor dropped. So, they feel like they're a part of it.” But some brands have been too eager to jump on the “Rick and Morty” hype cruiser without taking the detailed care Adult Swim strives to in every partnership. Like a Rick-stone cowboy In season three of “Rick and Morty,” Rick gives a passionate speech suggesting his entire motivation for saving the world was to find a discontinued packet of McDonald’s Szechuan sauce from a 1998 promotion of the Disney film “Mulan.” When fans began requesting McDonald’s revive the sauce, the fast food giant was happy to surf the wave of free publicity—even sending a vat of it to the show’s creators. Holy shit. pic.twitter.com/vNEIfHTmNU— Justin Roiland (@JustinRoiland) July 30, 2017 October 7, 2017, was a bizarre day in American history. It was the day “Rick and Morty” fans lined up outside McDonald’s locations hours before they opened and drove long distances across state and country lines to procure a packet of the sauce, but ended up holding protests and storming restaurants. The police were called to at least one McDonald’s. The chain had miserably underestimated the size and passion of the “Rick and Morty” fanbase and launched the un-official promotion without the stock to appease them. The movement’s chants, “we want sauce” and "give us sauce," resounded in restaurants and across social media. Here at the San Jose Mcdonalds. This is our reaction to the shortage of #szechuansauce #giveusthesauce #rickandmorty pic.twitter.com/sIGaUZKDKj— KTAFITNESS (@Chauncey_Boy) October 7, 2017 A barrage of anger and two apology tweets later, McDonald’s rolled out a larger supply of Szechuan sauce in early 2018. The sauce was accompanied by limited edition posters and marketing styled to imitate “Rick and Morty” since no official partnership had been established. The next time a brand mentioned on “Rick and Morty” wanted to engage the fanbase, things went much smoother with the involvement of Adult Swim. When Wrangler’s jeans were mentioned organically in the season four finale of “Rick and Morty” as the indestructible kryptonite for a Death Star-esque battleship called the “NX-5 Planet Remover,” Wrangler seized the opportunity to strike up an official partnership with the show. The “most indestructible collaboration in the multiverse” included a laser-etched denim jacket and t-shirt that launched at the 2020 virtual Adult Swim Festival. The partnership included social content with behind the scenes footage of the laser-etching process as well as clips from the episode that mentioned Wrangler (“It’s marketing. Like, um, ‘the NX-5: destroys the whole planet except for the Wrangler jeans,’” one alien says to another. “Because they’re so tough? Tougher than the laser? Stupid,” the other responds, perplexed. “You’re talkin’ about it,” retorts the first alien. “You’re right. They got me.”) The virtual Adult Swim Festival also featured digital interactives where nearly 20,000 fans entered to win merchandise from the Wrangler partnership. "The campaign gave us an unexpected but exciting moment to reach a new audience and embrace pop culture," Holly Wheeler, VP of global brand marketing for Wrangler, told Ad Age. "And it was incredibly successful, with the custom denim jacket selling out twice in the first two weeks." Wheeler also teased that more Wrangler "Rick and Morty" apparel is on the way this year: "In fact, the success of the first drop made it clear to us that we had something special, so we’re looking forward to an upcoming extension of the collaboration set to release this fall,” she says. Mi-Rick-le Seltzer The 2020 Adult Swim Festival also featured a collaboration with Miracle Seltzer, a sparkling water brand that boasts its product “is your one way ticket to a new dimension where you will experience 100% pure psychic love”—verbiage that proves a “Rick and Morty” partnership was a match made in Schwifty heaven. Miracle Seltzer’s lead product was the “Pickle Rick Miracle Seltzer,” a limited-run carbonated water spiked with pickle juice. In combination with the specialty water, Miracle Seltzer also launched custom “Rick and Morty” merch: green totes, hats and a long-sleeved T-shirt all with the Pickle Rick character’s face printed or embroidered on them. "Rick and Morty was the 'brine of our life' - the fan base is so strong and committed, it was the perfect way to create and own a new category, the savory seltzer," says B. Thom Stevenson, co-founder of Miracle Seltzer. "The Adult Swim team is a miracle - they understand culture, fandom, and product! Pickle Rick Miracle Seltzer came to life due to incredible collaboration with Adult Swim - there is no other team we'd rather be in a pickle with." At the virtual festival, Miracle Seltzer produced branded content featuring “Napoleon Dynamite” actor Jon Heder, musician Juan Wauters and fan-submitted videos. During Miracle Seltzer content streams, viewers could enter contests via chat to win cases of “Pickle Rick Miracle Seltzer” and merch. Food and Drug Ad-Morty-stration If there’s one fictional character that knows a thing or two about substance addiction, it’s Rick Sanchez, which is probably why the Food and Drug Administration partnered with “Rick and Morty” to promote its “Real Cost” anti-tobacco campaign for young people. In 2020, the FDA partnered with “Pocket Mortys” to integrate its “Real Cost” messaging into the game. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adult Swim Games (@adultswimgames) The FDA partnership took shape in a raid boss called Cig Reaper. Players could also collect and evolve three new items into a “Toxic Bundle” to poison opponents in multiplayer battles. For the season five premiere last month, the FDA returned to “Pocket Mortys” to promote awareness about the dangers of vaping. A custom Morty called “Toxic Metal Morty” was integrated into the game as well as “Mecha Rick” raid boss inspired by a custom animated spot developed by “Rick and Morty” and the “Real Cost” campaign. The video, which premiered on television and social media mid-June, features an animation style far more graphic and sharp than that of traditional “Rick and Morty.” Reminiscent of classic anime, the ad doesn’t feature typical Rick quips or a panic-attacked Morty, but depicts Rick soundlessly and gruesomely magnetizing the toxic metals in the lungs of young vapers, tearing the substance from their bodies to construct a gigantic robotic Rick—the “Mecha Rick” found in the “Pocket Mortys” game. “The Real Cost’s M.O. is to use irreverent storytelling to educate teens on the scientific consequences of using nicotine-related products," Gary Resch, executive creative director for FCB New York, the FDA's agency of record, told Ad Age. "Rick is the most irreverent scientist of all time, so he was a perfect vehicle to help deliver the news that vaping can put toxic metals into your lungs.” It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Morty Wendy! The brand that best represents the evolution of the “Rick and Morty” partnership philosophy is Wendy’s. The collaboration first began at the Adult Swim Festival in 2019 where Wendy’s debuted the custom Wendy Morty logo that combines the show’s art style with the restaurant’s iconic red-headed mascot. The festival’s activities that year also included a scavenger hunt for Wendy Morty magnets that could be exchanged for Wendy’s swag. “With Wendy's, that's when we really started to lean into like, ‘Okay, how can we bring new experiences in the physical world,'” says King. “And then literally overnight, we saw these items on eBay for hundreds of dollars.” The Wendy Morty character was integrated into “Pocket Mortys” as a special edition, collectible Morty. King explained that the Wendy’s partnership was the first to “bring the brand across all all of the ‘Rick and Morty’ ecosystem. [Wendy’s] was really taking advantage of that amazing engagement everywhere, whether it is linear, digital, experiential, gaming.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adult Swim Games (@adultswimgames) In May 2020, Wendy’s debuted an animated spot in tandem with the premiere of the second half of season four of “Rick and Morty.” The video resembled the mini-sode style of the “Alien: Covenant” and “Death Stranding” collaborations but with the menacing menu-items-come-to-life of the show’s first partnership with Carl’s Jr. In this food faceoff, Morty and his grandfather encounter Wendy’s breakfast items on a subway car. Rick explains the Breakfast Baconator, Frosty-ccino and Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit (“Chicken Biscuit’s a bruiser, Morty, do NOT mess with that guy”) because they’ve wanted them to do a Wendy’s commercial for months. The duo flee the subway, but Morty can’t quite keep up and stumbles as he jumps a turnstile, a crunch resounding as his crotch hits metal. “Get Wendy’s breakfast before Wendy’s breakfast gets you,” the ad threatens in its end card. The promo for Wendy’s breakfast items has scored just less than 9.5 million views at the time of reporting. It lifted Wendy’s unaided awareness by 88% and three-fourths of "Rick and Morty" viewers said their interest in Wendy’s grew because of the partnership, according to data from WarnerMedia. “We definitely keep a close watch on trends and where fans are at,” Jimmy Bennett, Wendy’s VP of marketing, told Ad Age. “We’re huge ‘Rick and Morty’ fans and I think that's a great place to start is when you love a program and an experience like this. It makes it easy to see the possibilities and capabilities. You don't show up like a brand, you show up like a fan.” Wendy’s returned for 2020’s virtual Adult Swim Festival as the first part of its renewed partnership for season five of “Rick and Morty.” The restaurant sponsored a contest that received more than 100,000 entries to win a Butter Robot and a year of Wendy’s breakfast food. The pièce de résistance of the Wendy’s partnership was a store takeover in Los Angeles last month, created in collaboration with The Marketing Arm and Spark, for the show’s fifth season premiere. “Morty’s” invaded Panorama City, California from June 18—20 with custom menu items like the “Pickle Rick Frosty,” a pickle rendition of Wendy’s classic dessert with dried pickle on top. The inter-dimensional restaurant also featured a drive-thru experience where giant inflatable Rick and Morty heads invited cars into a tunnel lined with LED screens displaying custom “Rick and Morty” animations as drivers waited for their food. Fans drove from hours away and waited in lines up to 7 hours long to experience the pop-up. Additionally, more than 5,000 Wendy’s locations across the U.S. had their Coca-Cola Freestyle machines invaded with custom flavors “Mello Yello Portal Time Lemon Lime” and “Mello Yello Berry Jerryboree” so that fans unable to travel to the west coast could enjoy the fun as well. Of course, a custom-animated ad accompanied the season five partnership to remind “Rick and Morty” fans that their breakfast menu will still accost you if given the chance. The show's titular heroes arrive home after one of their adventures (the Butter Robot that many mourned after the Old Spice ad returns!) and discover the same sinister trio they confronted on the subway a year before glaring in through the kitchen window. “Maybe we just do the commercial. I’m tired of running!” confesses Morty as the breakfast food hold up crudely lettered signs telling them to “choose wisely” and “choose Wendy’s.” On Adult Swim’s YouTube channel, the ad has nearly 2 million views. Rick to the future In addition to the Wendy’s and FDA partnerships, “Rick and Morty” also rolled out a Rick playable character in the free-to-play online multiplayer game Fortnite for the premiere of season five. From Fortnite to “Pocket Mortys” integration to the Adult Swim Festival, Adult Swim and WarnerMedia want to bring experiences to fans through their partnerships. “They're expecting us to be in business with people for a long time and continuing to up the game,” King says. “They are expecting experiences and expecting us to go deeper now” that Adult Swim has proven it’s capable of profound immersion. The Adult Swim Festival is a large piece in the cosmic puzzle of the company’s future marketing plans. Attendance has grown every year since 2018, reaching over 10 million across all streams for 2020’s virtual event. This year’s festival will also be primarily virtual (a limited, physical event will take place alongside it) and cater to the international watchers at last year’s festival, who comprised 60% of all attendance, but King promises big announcements for what’s to come at 2022’s return to in-person attendance. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adult Swim Presents (@adultswimpresents) From early partnerships six years ago to the robust slate of brand collaborations for the launch of “Rick and Morty” season five, which delivered over 2.1 million viewers and was the top telecast of the week among adults ages 18-24 and 25-54, King and her team immensely evolved their approach to partnership. As brands clamored for screen time with the show’s fandom, Adult Swim “tried a couple things, to be honest with you, that didn't work," King says. "And what we learned was that even though brands said that they wanted to be a part of it, they didn't necessarily get it.” “We built our brand on giving back to our fan base,” King says. “That's another part that's really important to us, that we bring up anytime we get into a long-term, meaningful partnership: this idea of giving back to our fans. We create these amazing experiences to give our fans one-of-a-kind experiences, we do giveaways, we just try to show them gratitude for showing up, for being there.”

The 'Rick and Morty' marketing multiverse: a definitive guide

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