BEST Breakfasts by The Sidemen
The largest YouTube collective in Europe, over 135 million subscribers and global superstar KSI at the helm; The Sidemen are an international YouTube phenomenon. Having already successfully launched restaurant chain Sides and XIX Vodka, the group wanted its next product to make a difference. The Sidemen decided to make cereal – an opportunity to disrupt a well-known breakfast market, with a strong charity partnership running underneath.
And, if you know The Sidemen, then you know the hype that follows them. The last time one of them launched a product like this, it was KSI with PRIME…
A disruptive TOV
The team brought me in to create BEST’s brand Tone of Voice from scratch. With a loose, moving brief and only three weeks until the product launched nationwide in 400 Tesco stores, time was tight. BEST wanted to land somewhere between Innocent Smoothies, Red Bull and Oatly – with that witty, down-to-earth Sidemen tone holding it all together. Not that The Sidemen have a ‘tone of voice’…instead I watched back-to-back episodes on YouTube and ate bowls of competitor brand cereal for research. Ah, that was a morning. The result was a 25-page TOV guide, anchored by these four TOV pillars. Which I’m sure you’ll see coming to life as the brand matures, as well as in the launch assets below.
Luke Littler’s big ad debut
For BEST’s launch, the team created this brilliant launch ad with Luke Littler, a 17 year-old darts prodigy loved by Gen Alpha and Gen Z. He reached the PDC World Darts Championship final in 2024, and won the Belgian Darts Masters shortly after BEST launched. The team asked if I could help create the copy and a tagline for the launch – to which I wrote: “It’s not magic, it’s BEST”.
Launch radio on CAPITAL
Launching BEST was a huge, multichannel undertaking. As well as paid social, OOH and national PR, it would appear on CAPITAL radio. You can listen to the radio script I wrote for the ad on the right.
Website copy that sells
BEST has its own website, and the copy needed to stand out and feel like the brand. I created a new copy mechanic for BEST to use on the website and in future creative, by combining the subject with BEST’s focus on taste: “Sidemen not included. Tastes good though.” I also wrote all other copy on the site.
