SharkNinja, known for its home and personal appliances, is betting on celebrities to help it grow its brand awareness in 2025.
People might be familiar with some of ShakNinja’s products, like its hair styling tool or its ice cream maker. However, because SharkNinja sells a wide variety of products, they might not be familiar with all of the products the company carries. As such, ShankNinja is betting on a wide range of celebrity influencer collaborations, as well as cultural tie-ins like limited-edition product releases, to make more customers aware of its entire range of products. The company’s most recent campaign, called “Ninja the Holidays,” features global brand ambassador David Beckham using various Ninja kitchen appliances to prepare a holiday meal in record time.
In addition to these partnerships, SharkNinja will also look to capitalize on organic social media content over the next year, both through live social platforms like TikTok and more traditional brand awareness campaigns. Throughout the second half of 2024, some of SharkNinja’s biggest ads featured famous names like Beckham, Kris Jenner and Courtney Cox.
Creating a global reach
According to SharkNinja, its products continue to be in high demand thanks to their social media virality propelled by user-generated content. This growing digital following has helped SharkNinja, which went public in 2023, surpass $5 billion in annual revenue. “In our last quarter, our business grew 35%, and in the second quarter, we grew 38% [in the] top line,” SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas said.
At the same time, SharkNinja is growing at a high rate globally. It is expanding its reach in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, where it launched this year. The company now sells its products in 26 countries through a combination of direct sales and retail partners. “We’re also entering into new product categories,” Barrocas said. In 2024, that included coolers, outdoor fans and espresso machines with the release of the Ninja Luxe Café.
With dozens of newly developed products set to be released in 2025, Barrocas said these additional efforts will help the company reach a wider audience outside of viral social media moments.
A more global marketing push through celebrities and cultural tie-ins can help reach these audiences.
Because much of the engagement is product-driven, Barrocas said SharkNinja has to have a constant flow of product innovation. “We develop 25 ground-up products a year, and those are going after lots of very different demographics,” Barrocas said.
These appliances also tend to create anticipation that the company wants to leverage further, Barrocas said. The Ninja Slushi, for instance, sold out in two days in July and currently has a 100,000 customer waitlist in the U.S. Barrocas pointed to upcoming examples that gear more toward beauty and wellness. Similarly, the Shark CryoGlow LED Face Mask launched in the U.K. and Mexico recently, and is coming to the U.S. at the beginning of 2025.
SharkNinja is also continuing to look for new ways to advertise on channels, especially ones that make it easier to convert audiences into customers. “We advertise on Thursday Night Football on Amazon, and when we do that, we see an immediate spike in lift in our Amazon business,” Barrocas said.
Leaning on authentic celebrity endorsements
Beckham is an example of a celebrity endorsement that came about organically, he said. Beckham signed on as the company’s global brand ambassador in May 2024 and has since starred in a series of campaigns over the past few months. Other global athletes the company partnered with in 2024 include fellow soccer stars Peter Crouch, Thierry Henry and Bastian Schweinsteiger.
“My wife and I watched the David Beckham documentary and saw he loves cooking and being in the kitchen,” Barrocas said. When the company reached out to Beckham, it turned out he already had a few Ninja products. “In 2025, we’ll be going into year two with our campaign with David Beckham,” Barrocas said. “We’re launching 25 new products that he’s going to really help us amplify the messages around.”
Similarly, Jenner has been tapped to promote Ninja’s ice cream maker, the Creami. Jenner often talks about the machine as a tool she uses to entertain her children and grandchildren. Other reality stars, like “Vanderpump Rules” cast member Lala Kent, partnered with the company to promote Ninja’s Thirsti Still beverage marker.
Another recent celebrity endorsement is from actress Courteney Cox, who’s currently starring in Shark’s PowerDetect vacuum commercial. “She is known as a clean freak and talks about it on her social feeds, which makes it feel like a really authentic partnership,” he said.
Tie-ins with Hollywood projects are also becoming a prominent part of SharkNinja’s marketing playbook. The latest Shark FlexStyle limited-edition collaboration is a “Wicked” movie tie-in, following the successful Barbie-themed version released last year. “We’re trying to take these popular products and connect them with other aspects of culture,” Barrocas said.
A more cohesive messaging for the SharkNinja brand will be featured in more marketing material in 2025. “I think that people know the Shark and Ninja brands, but in many cases, they don’t know that the brands are made by the same company,” Barrocas said. “You’re going to see that more from us.”
That will kick into gear next summer when the company will be featured as part of a sponsor Apple’s new “F1” movie starring Brad Pitt. “SharkNinja is a sponsor on the car and on Brad’s uniform, and I think that’s going to be amazing for us,” Barrocas said.
When the partnership was coming together, the company was trying to decide which of the two brand logos to feature as an ad on the car. “Ultimately, we came to realize that this is a great opportunity, for the first time, to use the SharkNinja brand and really promote the company behind these great products,” Barrocas said.
Barrocas said the latest series of partnerships, combined with SharkNinja’s user-generated content, is helping create a flywheel effect across organic and paid ad channels, which also include CTV and out-of-home. “That kind of leverage to grow the company’s awareness globally is what our big focus is for ‘25’,” he said.
Ivan Kayser, CEO of brand consultancy Redscout, said there is still a lot of power in celebrity collaborations, especially unexpected ones such as actor Brian Cox’s mental health-focused Asics campaign, released earlier this year.
“Others, like Action Bronson x New Balance or even Gap x Palace with a cameo from Spice Girl Melanie C,” Kayser said, “all sold out and got the word-of-mouth push that they were aiming for.” These aren’t necessarily the biggest names that can bring in their own audience, Kayser said, but counted on the audience to be familiar with the collaborators’ personalities.
“To win in the brand partnership space, you need to understand the difference between the audience and the fans,” Kayser said. “Audiences are already saturated, but fans always want stories to go deeper.”
SharkNinja wants to tap cultural figures who can put their own spin on what’s working for the brand’s organic content. “I think the most authentic content is what’s coming from actual users that have bought the product and want to show it off,” Barrocas said. The flurry of entertainment tie-ins and celebrity partnerships are meant to help SharkNinja expand on that.
