source: Jon Springer Ad Age
Dr Pepper is giving TikTok users the commercial they’ve been asking for. Romeo Bingham’s homemade Dr Pepper jingle, which took the platform by storm in recent weeks, will be featured in a TV spot set to air twice during the College Football Playoff National Championship tonight on ESPN.
The 15-second ad, created by Deutsch, will air in commercial time that was originally purchased for Dr Pepper’s college football-themed “Fansville” franchise. The change means that two 30-second “Fansville” commercials will air during the game instead of the planned three.
Bingham’s brief but catchy jingle—“Dr Pepper, baby, it’s good and nice”—was posted to TikTok Dec. 23 and raced to more than 25 million views, inspiring other creators to generate remixes, dances and self-made commercials. The explosion of activity and demands that Dr Pepper officially participate was a “brick to forehead” moment for the brand, said Ben Sylvan, senior VP of connected media for Dr Pepper.
“The signal was so loud that ignoring it wasn’t really an option,” Sylvan said.
Deutsch’s ad shows Dr Pepper varieties and a fizzing soda pour set to a high-energy remix of the jingle, with bold on-screen lyrics and the “doot doot doot” outro that was absent from some TikTok remixes and became its own subgenre of the song’s virality. @Romeosshow credits appear in the bottom corner in the style of a music video.
Deutsch leaned into the simplicity of the original jingle, said Ryan Lehr, the agency’s co-chief creative officer.
“Rather than overcomplicating the idea, we focused on honoring what made the jingle special in the first place,” Lehr stated. “We kept the execution simple, built around the original hook, and let the earworm lead.”
Bingham said they expected the original post to top out at “maybe 200,000 likes,” but never spiral into a moment that would reach national TV. “I was blown away once it took off like that.”
Dr Pepper’s growth
Many of the fans watching and participating in the social media moment were already Dr Pepper devotees, Sylvan said, and elevating it to national TV acknowledges that relationship. The simplicity and memorability of the jingle made it effective advertising in its own right, he added, capable of reaching consumers beyond TikTok to help grow the brand’s share of the carbonated soft drink market.
Dr Pepper’s response to the jingle video arrived later than some commenters had hoped and social media observers might have recommended, with other brands capitalizing on its popularity before the soda marketer stepped in. Dr Pepper officially broke the ice on Friday, posting a TikTok referencing the original with the subtle accompaniment of a “friendship bracelet.”
The ad’s placement during the College Football Playoff National Championship is significant as Dr Pepper is an official sponsor of the playoffs and of major college football conferences such as the SEC and Big Ten. And its ongoing “Fansville” franchise is one of the major pillars of the brand’s growth.
“College football is the temple that Dr. Pepper is most closely connected to,” said Sylvan.
More social content to come
Bingham said the jingle was never intended as a brand play, but part of a broader effort to build a creative career that includes songwriting and acting, with plans to release more original music. Since the Dr Pepper video, they have gotten additional jingle writing work via an official partnership with Vita Coco.
Dr Pepper said it licensed the jingle from Bingham as part of the activation. The brand will be working with the creator on more social content over the coming months, Sylvan said.
The creator said the arrangement was handled as a formal creative collaboration. “They credited me, involved me, and worked in good faith to see how far we could take it,” Bingham said.
Sylvan said the response underscores the importance of watching audiences in real time alongside more traditional ad planning tools.
“We spend so much of our time doing diagnostics on who our buyers are, where we have a right to win. And that’s work we have to continue to do,” Sylvan said. “But you can’t lose sight of what people are just telling you. If you have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people telling you that this is resonating, it’s telling you this is powerful content, and could be really impactful for your brand.”
