Five Guys: Bubblegum Shake & Loaded Fries
Turning two food and drink launches into creator-led social moments built for Instagram and TikTok.
Five Guys had two very different campaign moments: a London creator event for the Bubblegum Shake, followed by a product-led content push for the Loaded Fries drop.
The work needed to do more than show the products. It had to capture the atmosphere, creator reactions, product appeal and social proof in a format people would actually stop and watch.
- Client
- Five Guys
- Sector
- Food & Drink / QSR
- Goal
- Awareness
- Channels
- Instagram Reels, TikTok
- Services
- Event Content Capture, UGC Campaign Creative, Short-Form Video, Creative Direction
Two launches, two different social jobs.
Five Guys had two separate campaign moments, each with a different creative problem.
The Bubblegum Shake event was built around experience. It had colour, music, creators, in-store activation, nostalgic styling and the feeling of being part of something happening in real life.
The Loaded Fries drop was more product-led. It needed clear food shots, creator reactions, direct-to-camera moments and content that made the product easy to understand quickly.
The common thread was UGC. Both campaigns needed content that felt native to social platforms, not like a traditional advert resized for Instagram.
The challenge
Food and drink campaigns have a short window to make sense in-feed. People do not sit and decode the campaign. They either understand the moment quickly, or they scroll. For Five Guys, the content needed to:
- make the product clear within the first few seconds
- capture real creator participation
- make the Bubblegum Shake event feel active and worth watching
- make the Loaded Fries feel appetising and immediate
- work naturally as vertical short-form content
- avoid feeling overly polished or disconnected from the platform
What event content often gets wrong
A lot of event content only proves that an event happened. It shows the room, the branding and the guests, but it does not always create useful social assets. The stronger approach is to capture moments that work on their own: reactions, product close-ups, creator participation, phones filming, movement, atmosphere and simple clips that still make sense to someone who never attended.
The campaign moments
One experiential creator event and one product-led drop — related, but with different creative jobs.
Bubblegum Shake Event
Event energy and creator participationThe Bubblegum Shake campaign was built around the energy of a London creator event. The useful content moments were not just the product shots, but the surrounding context: creators filming, DJ/music energy, playful event styling, red-and-blue lighting, in-store activity and nostalgic 2000s cues. The aim was to make the shake feel like part of a live social moment, not just another menu item.
Content angles
- Bubblegum Shake product focus
- Creator event atmosphere
- DJ and music-led energy
- Phones filming the activation
- Claw machine / interactive event moments
- 2000s nostalgia styling
- Social proof from creators attending
Loaded Fries Drop
Product clarity and reaction-led UGCThe Loaded Fries campaign was more direct and product-led. The content needed to make the food look clear, loaded, textured and worth trying. The strongest moments were close-up food shots, creators holding the tray towards camera, first-bite reactions, short direct-to-camera commentary and simple hooks that made the product easy to understand in-feed.
Content angles
- Loaded fries reveal
- Product close-ups
- First bite reactions
- Creator commentary
- In-store filming
- “Would you try this?” style hooks
- Snackable vertical edits
The strategy
Both campaign moments used the same underlying logic: make the product obvious, make the human response visible, and make the content feel like it belongs in the feed.
Make the product clear early
For food and drink content, clarity matters. The audience should understand what they are seeing before the video asks them to care about it. The shake needed a clear visual identity: pale blue, playful, nostalgic and event-led. The Loaded Fries needed texture, toppings and close-up appetite appeal.
Use creators as social proof
Creator-led content gives the audience a human response to mirror. A reaction, a taste test, a phone filming the moment or someone holding the product to camera can do more than a polished product shot because it feels closer to how people actually discover food online.
Turn campaign moments into reusable assets
The value of the event was not only the event itself. The useful output was a bank of short-form moments that could be reused across posts, stories, recap edits, launch content and campaign proof.
From campaign moment to short-form content system
The strongest campaigns are planned with the end platform in mind. For this work, the question was not simply “what should we film?” It was “what moments will still work when someone sees them quickly, vertically, and without context?”
- 1Campaign Moment
- 2Creator Participation
- 3Product Reactions
- 4Event Atmosphere
- 5Short-Form Edits
- 6Instagram / TikTok
- 7Audience Response
- product shown early
- creator reactions captured
- event energy preserved
- vertical-first filming
- platform-native pacing
- views, likes, comments, saves and reactions monitored
The creative execution
The work was built around small, repeatable content moments rather than one overproduced hero asset.
For the Bubblegum Shake event, that meant capturing the atmosphere: red interiors, blue/pink lighting, creators filming, DJ energy, the claw machine activation and the shake itself.
For the Loaded Fries drop, that meant making the product feel immediate: close food shots, toppings, sauce, first reactions and creator-led framing.
The creative approach was simple on purpose. In short-form food content, the audience needs to know what it is, why it looks interesting, and whether it feels worth trying.
Supporting visuals on this page are created for website presentation.
Campaign outputs
- UGC-style short-form video concepts
- Event recap content
- Creator-led reaction clips
- Product-led food content
- Instagram Reels assets
- TikTok-ready assets
- Bubblegum Shake event content
- Loaded Fries launch content
- Vertical video moments for reuse
- Content built around product clarity, reaction and social proof
Exact asset counts can be confirmed on request.
Published video performance
The figures below come from individual published videos. They show the actual in-feed performance of specific posts from the campaign.
22.1K
views
13.9K
views
28.6K
views
28.6K
views
Metrics shown are taken from published campaign posts.
For creator-led food campaigns, views are useful, but they are not the whole picture. A stronger read comes from looking at whether the content made people notice the product, understand the launch moment and respond to it.
Useful signals we watch
- Watch-through
- Likes
- Comments
- Saves
- Shares
- Profile actions
- Creator engagement
- Reaction quality
What this project shows
This project shows how food and drink brands can turn launches into content people understand quickly.
The Bubblegum Shake event needed atmosphere and participation. The Loaded Fries drop needed product clarity and reaction. Both needed content that felt native to the platforms people were already using.
The value was not simply in filming the product or documenting the event. It was in turning each campaign moment into reusable short-form assets that could carry awareness beyond the room.
Planning a product launch or creator event?
A launch needs more than a few posts after the fact. It needs a clear content plan, the right creator moments and a way to turn the event or product drop into assets people actually want to watch.
