Celebrity partnerships promise reach, relevance, and cultural validation, and while many do deliver impressive headline numbers, the reality is more nuanced. The majority of posts fall into one of two camps:
Tier C: Poor organic performance, often masked by paid views
Tier B: High organic performance that celebrates the celebrity, ignoring the brand
Only 10-20% achieve Tier A: collaborations that deliver genuine brand-building reach, where audiences celebrate the brand and the partnership itself, not just the celebrity.
The content of comments tells you why audiences engage: only tier A posts celebrate the brand
The deciding factor isn't star power—it's story power.
Top-performing posts weave the brand into a context audiences recognise and love—a fictional universe from the celebrity's work (Secret x Wicked), their on-screen persona (Loewe x bumbling, lovable Josh O’Connor), or their real-world personality (Stella Artois x rebellious Agassi, Prada x Chris Briney).
Done right, the partnership feels like a "bonus episode" — an experience the brand made happen. Done wrong, the post comes across as a commercial that parachutes famous faces into the brand’s world.
Let’s close with a few examples from each of the 3 content tiers:
Tier C - low organic engagement, compensate with paid views
1. Chanel × Timothée Chalamet (22m views, a wide majority of them paid for, 65k engagements, no rich comment threads) — The star is styled in generic luxury settings unconnected to any character or persona audiences know. No narrative hook, slow pacing, purely aesthetic.
Top comments had just a few likes: lack of deep engagement
2. Dior Christmas Circus (110k engagement, 6.7m views, over 80% of them paid)— Stunning visuals, no story. Portfolio of beautiful disconnected moments with no narrative thread. Aesthetic spectacle that's passively admired, quickly forgotten.
Cross-posted across 4 accounts totalling 75m followers, landed just 1-1.5m organic views on Instagram
Tier B — Good Content Craft, Misaligned Worlds
Even when the content gets today’s codes right, it often stumbles into Tier B: the celebrity is force-fit into the brand's world. The numbers look good, but a closer look reveals >95% of discussions focus on the celeb, not the brand.
3. Dior × Robert Pattinson — the star is styled in generic Dior luxury settings unconnected to any character or persona audiences recognise. Comments spiral into Twilight nostalgia, fan worship, and jokes. The brand becomes wallpaper.
High organic engagement, but almost all comments are for RP while Dior is ignored
4. YSL × Dua Lipa (Chile) (~6m organic views (11m views total), 550k engagement)— Strong production, compelling setting and music. But two competing narratives (YSL's luxury world vs. Chile's national pride) split audience attention. Comments flood with "Viva Chile!" while the brand disappears entirely from discussions.
Large organic engagement, but the deep engagement is really for Chile and Dua Lipa - YSL is barely acknowledged
As an aside, note that most a priori high performing K-pop posts land in Tier B: vibrant comment discussions from large fandoms that often couldn’t care less about the brand. Here is a recent example for Prada.
Tier A — Top tier content quality and true brand/celebrity Integration
Brand and creator share a world that just “feels right”—and the conversation celebrates the union of a beloved celeb with the brand behind this moment.
5. PRADA × Chris Briney — Fuses actor's authentic childhood-to-confidence journey with "Paradigme shift" concept. The top comment shows viewers connect the dots: "The summer I turned PRADA" (+14,115 likes).
Audiences celebrate casting intelligence ("Extremely smart move" +1,411) while committing to purchase ("We'll buy the Prada cologne. Anything for you" +751).
6. Loewe × Josh O’Connor — Showcases his signature awkward, bumbling persona in an absurdist "anti-interview" where he struggles through 15 seconds of stammers and anxious breaths. Audiences celebrate the brand's wit and unconventional humour.
Very much fits his persona and sensibility in some of his leading roles
Stella Artois x Agassi (carousel) — Fuses Agassi's iconic rebellion against Wimbledon's dress code with the brand's "fashionably late" arrival, positioning both as sophisticated non-conformists.
Audiences decode the historical joke ("omgoodness, I 😂 this! Fashionably late... Agassi was such the rebel! 😂" +21 likes)
Secret Deo x Wicked: Creates a canonical scene featuring Wicked characters Pfannee and Shenshen. Deodorant becomes the plot's hero, solving character stress. Audiences celebrate brand creativity, expect greater recall and impact on preferences.
"You nailed Jon M. Chu's visual style with this commercial!" (+420 likes)
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