How Rockstar Energy (France) Leveraged Hatik’s 1M Fans to Reach New Audiences

Key Takeaways

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In April 2022, Rockstar Energy (France) announced a partnership with French rapper Hatik; here’s what it entailed:    

Platform

• Rockstar leveraged its Instagram and YouTube accounts to promote the partnership with Hatik.
• Hatik only cross-posted one sponsored post to his personal social media accounts.
• Rockstar Energy France’s deal with Hatik includes a radio show, La Force, that airs on Skyrocket radio, and the sponsored content reaches various audiences of the radio station.

Influencer Tier

• Hatik has 1M followers on Instagram, 1M subscribers on YouTube, and 347K followers on TikTok, which classifies him as a Mega influencer.
• Rockstar explained that it selected Hatik for his ambition and “desire to go further”.
• Rockstar Energy sponsored radio show, La Force, at developing young rap talent, whose success will be associated with the brand. 

Influencer Types

• Rockstar Energy’s major partnership is with the French rapper Hatik.
• Rockstar Energy also entered into a minor partnership with the semi-professional eSports team Yellow Stripes (a collaboration between Team Vitality & Adidas).

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Rockstar Energy has a separate Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter account for its French audience. The brand partners with local celebrities and Esports teams to build a better connection with the local audience. Rockstar Energy has multiple initiatives that help put the brand in front of different communities, from rap fans to gamers, and support its growth in the French market.  All references to Rockstar in this report refer to Rockstar’s France account.

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Rockstar Energy has the most followers on YouTube (4.7K), followed by Instagram (3.2K). The brand doesn't have a regional account for France on Facebook or TikTok.

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Rockstar Energy is most active on Instagram and Twitter, where the brand posts on average 1.6 times per week. The brand posts, on average, once a week on YouTube. Rockstar has low engagement rates on Instagram and Twitter — 0.03% and 0.01%, respectively. 

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Rockstar Energy featured influencers in every post it created between May-August 2022. Rockstar mainly collaborated with French rapper Hatik and the eSports team Yellow Stripes. The influencer posts featured on Rockstar Energy’s account are rarely cross-posted on the influencer’s accounts. Only Hatik & KOLO* have cross-posted content to their Instagram feed (but only once).  

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In April 2022, Rockstar Energy announced a collaboration with French rapper, Hatik and launched a new campaign titled “La Force”.

Here’s how the brand explained its choice of celebrity partner:

“Hatik's extraordinary career echoes Rockstar Energy Drink's ambition to move the lines. This partnership is a wonderful illustration of our desire to always go further, with the ambition of boosting the soft drinks market, and opening up this segment to new consumers. Our ambition is to reach 20% market share by 2026,” -Morgane Miralles, Group Manager Rockstar PepsiCo France.

The brand announced the collaboration with a YouTube video that got 460K views. As a part of this partnership, Hatik will host a radio show, La Force, aimed at discovering new talents. (Source)

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Between May – August 2022, Rockstar Energy aired three episodes of La Force. 

Rockstar may have boosted the series, as each video received well above their channel average of 112K views*. Hatik, on the other hand, hasn’t shared any of the La Force episodes on his YouTube channel with 1M subscribers.

Skyrock, the radio Rockstar Energy partnered with to air La Force, re-posts the episodes to its own YouTube channel; however, all three videos received only 539 views in total (as of August 2022). 

Episode 1 Views: 562K

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Episode 2 Views: 317K

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Episode 3 Views: 427K

*When Rockstar’s top 5 videos are removed, their avg. views per video drops to 502. Data collected manually directly from YouTube: Data Range: All Time

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While Hatik mentors new rap talent, Rockstar Energy also nurtures new potential influencers and partakes in the future success of new French musicians. La Force empowers talents such as Kolo and Leonis, each with 19K followers on Instagram. 

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Rockstar Energy also partnered with the semi-professional eSports team Yellow Stripes (a collaboration between @adidasparis and @teamvitality), who will participate in the MasterCard Nexus Tour 2022. 

Rockstar Energy created short feature videos about each team member. 

Rockstar Energy announced the start of the project on its Instagram page and posted the first episode there as well. However, afterward, the brand only published the videos on its YouTube channel.

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Between May – August 2022 Rockstar Energy produced 7 feature episodes about Team Vitality athletes and published them on its YouTube channel. 

The brand placed the product in each video by either adding a graphic overlay, placing the can in the frame, or having the gamer take a sip.

Rockstar Energy didn’t invest any budget to promote the videos; on average, they received only 66 views.

Team Vitality hasn’t reposted any of these features to their own YouTube channel. However, whenever the eSports club creates a video about the team getting ready for the Tour de France, they always feature Rockstar Energy products. 

Episode 1 Views: 54

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Episode 2 Views: 55

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Episode 3 Views: 44