Gigi x Eloise x Ninja 👑🍞📰

Case study of what it takes to make a sponsored video go well 👌 PLUS what we read on Substack this week!

Feb 21, 2025

∙ Paid

👀 Gigi who?!?

Gigi is Eloise’s mother—duh! But, if you’re not on sourdoughtok (or foodtok) you’re probaby unfamiliar with the viral sensation that is Eloise the Starter. Gigi got popular on TikTok by posting her sourdough starter journey, from feeding a new starter to current loaves. Generally Gigi’s content is food based, or just really fun and funny. Sometimes she’s baking Eloise, sometimes she’s dancing, sometimes she’s making a mess on the counter. People love her because she doesn’t take things too seriously, and because she says “flakey sea sawlt 🤌” and throws it over her shoulder for luck (people are so curious about how much salt is by her oven).

Recently Gigi and Eloise hit over 1m followers on TikTok, and shortly after we are seeing Gigi’s first big brand placements. Influencers who are popular from TikTok can be really hit or miss when it comes to brand deals, but we’re happy to report that this sponsorship had just as much fun and flavor as any other Gigi video. Let’s talk specifics:

🍴 Ninja x Gigi Ate This

You can tell Gigi chooses wisely when looking at partnerships because this was the perfect pairing. Not only was it well within her niche, but she’s used products from Ninja before so it really came full circle. The lead up video, with the recipe, has 4.1m views featuring a little Graza Olive Oil plug, a product she’s talked about having a discount code in other videos.

The next, Ninja sponsored video, is Gigi showing off their Crispi 4-in-1 portable glass air fryer, cooking the dough prepped from the prep video (the one with with 4m+ views).

This new, more formal sponsorship took Gigi’s primary content category—food—and allowed her to experiment, baking Eloise in a new way. People love to see new things from Eloise and this was no exception. At 1.1m views and over 100,000 likes we’d say Gigi ate more than pizza pinwheels that day—and the comments agree!

The 500+ comments are nothing short of the sweetest little group chat, with encouragements and celebrations. From people being proud to watch her get a sponsored video, to comments like “I like that this was natural, not a fake feeling ad.”

Some people have even commented things like “omg another kitchen gadget I need” (social sells when done correctly!!!) and “yes girl make that dough ”.

The comments show that this was truly a ✨masterclass✨ in sponsored content. Influencers and brands should be paying attention and taking notes.

People knew it was a sponsored post, but people didn’t seem to care (even though sometimes ads aren’t as popular as regular videos) and even reposted it leaving comments like, “Not me reposting an advertisment 😳😂”.

Why are people so obsessed? This is why:

Gigi was herself—which is why people follow her in the first place. Like we said, people love her fun, silly personality and the fact that she always acts like herself. People love that she didn’t change a thing about her content to collaborate with Ninja!
A new recipe—new content with a familiar face (or whatever the face equivalent for Eloise is) creates interest, and for anyone with their own sourdough starter, they just added a new tool to their tool box when watching this video–especially when she endorses the end result as something her “oven could’ve never done”.
Gigi is community first—she’s created a community that understands her humor, has similar interests and looks out for her videos. This means rather than having followers, she has a bunch of very distant internet friends, which provides a lot more opportunity for happy and supportive comments over an influencer who might put out “hot takes” that get their follows in a more controversial way.
Trend alignment—it aligns with and expands on the current sourdough trends in the TikTok baking world, which is where Gigi is probably most known.

As Karl commented on the TikTok, “The fact everyone is hyped for you having a sponsor says enough about the vibes here. 💃😎” and we think that sums it up nicely.