2024 saw the resurgence of diss tracks, dominating social media and pop culture, notably with Kendrick vs. Drake. Meanwhile, a quieter trend emerged—gift cards were given as gifts more than ever before. We noticed kids growing frustrated with the lack of joy in receiving them, missing the dopamine spike that comes with instant gratification. To challenge gift cards in a way both culture and parents would notice, MGA + Virtue created a diss track, turning it into a modern holiday rap carol. Jumping on a new emerging talent just as he was becoming popular, viral child-star sensation (The Rizzler) dropped the track, taking aim at the uninspired nature of gift cards, accompanied by a spontaneous online launch and a high-energy music video on YouTube. Featuring MGA toys throughout, the video was fully shoppable, allowing viewers to click and purchase products directly. The end result was a viral music sensation that kids and adults were singing all winter long.
MGA Leads: Josh Hackbarth, Cassandra Scholnick, Ashlee Meese, Nicole Smith
Agency partners: Virtue World Wide
Heather McTavish, Will Stallmeyer, Mauricio Santos, Danielle Russo, Rachel Patel
.
SOME NUMBERS:
Total Video Views: Over 7M views across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok on MGA and The Rizzler’s channels.
- YouTube Highlights:
- Views: 3.3M+, with over 116,000 hours viewed
- Strong engagement rates, with Day 1 at 8.24% and Day 7 at 4.72% and over 4MM Engagements
- Notable keyword targeting and audience alignment.
- 10,000 Shares
Social Media Highlights:
Content seeded across ItzTheRizzler, MGA Entertainment, Bratz, Miniverse, Little Tikes, L.O.L. Surprise!, Rainbow High, Yummiland, BABYborn, Finders Creepers, and GrossMos! Social channels generated:
o 4M Organic Video Views
o 290K Organic Engagements
o The initial IG post of the music video had a highly rare Shares-to-Likes ratio of 1.3:1 (There are typically 3-10x more Likes than Shares)
· Additional TikTok posts by creators like Daddyronaldo and eric.justice.befumo
contributed to overall virality.
· This activation resulted in a 15% MOM increase in Follower Growth on the MGA Entertainment Socials
· Conversation on Social across X, YT, Reddit, and IG not on our owned and operated channels generated 3.4M additional impressions that were 81% positive.
Earned Media and Public Relations Impact
- Total advertising value equivalency (AVE): $1.15M for the campaign.
- Actively pitched 412 media contacts by MGA Comms and 90+ additional contacts by DDA including pre video drop and post.
- Press Release distributed in newswire:
- Garnered 545.7M impressions across 617 placements, including AP News and Yahoo! Finance.
- Key Media Hits (12 unique):
- Forbes (12/23): "Toy Company’s ‘No Gift Cards’ Campaign Goes Viral"
- Access Hollywood (12/20): Coverage on multiple platforms, including:
- Instagram Plays: 208,900 | TikTok Plays: 1,142 | YouTube Views: 4.7K
- NBC Online: "The Rizzler Paints Santa Claus Doing The Rizz Face"
- UVM: 9.35M | AVE: $86,497.74
- Fox Business (Claman Countdown 12/20): Social media sensation ‘The Rizzler’ on what kids want for the holidays
- Additional coverage from AdAge, Trend Hunter, The Toy Book, and Betches contributed incremental 63.8M impressions.
