Why Sidemen’s Best Cereal is destined for long-term success

If YouTube collective The Sidemen puts its name to a product, young people will buy it.

The supergroup – comprising YouTube personalities KSI, Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Behzinga, Vikkstar123, and W2S – has a collective reach of 146.2 million subscribers, which is a captive audience for its various business ventures.

Over recent years, The Sidemen have launched a clothing line, trading cards, a vodka brand… and have even opened their own casual dining chain, Sides.

One of the group’s members, KSI, also co-founded the viral soft drinks brand, Prime. After its UK launch in 2022, demand for Prime was so high that shoppers were filmed fighting over limited stock in Aldi.

Bottles were also resold online at over-inflated prices, forcing retailers to impose caps on the number of drinks shoppers could buy.

No surprise, then, that Prime was the fastest-growing food and drink brand in 2023, adding £148m in sales according to The Grocer’s Britain’s Biggest Brands report 2024 [NIQ 52 w/e 31 December].

However, the hype didn’t last long; Prime’s value slumped in the first quarter of this year, down 52.2% to £12.8m [NIQ 12 w/e 23 March 2023].

The Sidemen enter cereal

The launch of The Sidemen’s Best Cereal in March hasn’t driven shoppers into quite the same level of frenzy as Prime did. That said, sales have been solid; the brand claims to have sold 500,000 boxes through Tesco tills in its first three months, equivalent to £1m or 187,500 kilos worth of cereal.

Plus, Best has this month secured listings in Iceland and Morrisons, and even became the official cereal supplier to ITV’s Love Island villa. Its steady growth is indicative of a new long-term strategy for The Sidemen building its name in grocery, led by manager Jordan Schwarzenberger, who refers to Prime’s flash-in-the-pan success as a “gift and curse”.

The challenge for The Sidemen is to “take the best” of Prime’s proposal “and make it work long-term in retail”, Schwarzenberger told audience members at The Grocer’s Marketing Business Leaders Lunch last month.

He acknowledged that “great products” were essential to ensure a brand had staying power in grocery. As such, Schwarzenberger revealed that “working with people who are at the top of their game” would be a priority for any future food and drink launches from the collective.

Best, for instance, was the result of a partnership between The Sidemen and established cereal player Mornflake. According to Schwarzenberger, Mornflake admitted that cereals were a “stale old space” that could benefit from a disruptor. Meanwhile, Mornflake could create the “healthy and delicious” cereal Sidemen commanded.

Dominating grocery

The Sidemen also teamed up with jerky manufacturer New World Foods in March to launch a trio of ambient meat snacks, inspired by dishes served at Sides. According to Schwarzenberger, they sold “over one million units in nine weeks”.

The collective has also launched a 15-strong frozen range under its Sides brand exclusively into Iceland this month. To mark the launch, Iceland has converted its Hackney store into ‘SidesLand’ until the end of June, adding Sides fridges and heavy branding across PoS and ceiling banners. The activation has lured droves of teenagers to the store.

What’s interesting about Best Cereal, though, is that it exists as a separate entity from The Sidemen. Its bold and colourful branding is a departure from Sides’ staple white logo on a black background. And as Schwarzenberger points out, “most of the sales will be through people who don’t know who The Sidemen are”.

While putting the group’s faces on clip-strips and barkers is a proven way to drum up interest from YouTube followers, this excitement will surely subside over time, as it did for Prime. Meanwhile, Best has adopted clever strategies to build itself as a separate brand, while making the most of The Sidemen’s expertise at marketing to young consumers.

Building the Best brand

To coincide with its launch, Best ran an advertising campaign starring professional darts player Luke Littler. The ad, which depicts Littler tucking into a bowl of Best Cereal while throwing three bullseyes, ran on social media, where young shoppers spend a large amount of their free time.

The Sidemen have featured Best Cereal in their own ‘Inside’ series, but they have also recruited YouTuber Sketch, who has five million subscribers, for a second promotional campaign. As such, they are broadcasting the brand to YouTube users outside of their established fanbase.

Plus, by supplying the Love Island villa with cereal, Best is getting in front of even more of its target market. As of 2020, Love Island is the most-watched TV show among 16 to 34-year-olds.

Finally, its non-HFSS credentials mean it can be promoted on the end of supermarket aisles, which gives it an advantage over indulgent cereals like Crunchy Nut.

While Kellogg’s won’t be looking over its shoulder yet, Best is certainly not to be sniffed at. Its clever, multi-pronged approach to its marketing strategy is something the giants could learn from when advertising to younger shoppers.

Perhaps in years to come, Best’s sales will live up to its superlative name.