Last Updated on July 24, 2026
4M views in 3 days
98% positive sentiment
Google’s no.1 YouTube ad of 2020
UK orders +58% in Q4 2020
The move
In 2019, McCann London built Just Eat a jingle. Not a slogan, a jingle: ‘Did somebody say Just Eat’, an earworm engineered to be sung. Then, in May 2020, Just Eat did something that turned a decent audio asset into a national event. It paid Snoop Dogg to rewrite it.
The fee was reported at £5.3m, a figure Just Eat’s brand chief called ‘far too high’, so treat it as tabloid arithmetic. Whatever the price, the effect was measurable. The ad pulled 4 million views in its first three days in the UK with 98% net positive sentiment, half of consumers said they were more likely to order after seeing it, and Google ranked it the most creative and engaging YouTube ad of 2020. In Q4 2020 UK orders grew 58%, though lockdown was doing plenty of that lifting on its own.
The detail most people miss: the ad was finished before the first lockdown, and Just Eat deliberately sat on it for five weeks, judging that a celebrity extravagance would land badly at the pandemic’s peak. Timing was a decision, not luck. The platform then outlived its star: Katy Perry took over the jingle in 2022, and Christina Aguilera and Latto turned it into a ‘hip-hopera’ in 2023.
Why it worked
The genius is in what stayed constant. Celebrities changed, genres changed, but the jingle never did. Just Eat was not renting Snoop Dogg’s fame, it was using his fame to install a piece of sonic property in the nation’s head. Once ‘did somebody say’ belongs to you, every hum, playground parody and office joke is unpaid media.
Sound is also the most underrated branding channel. A logo needs to be seen; a jingle works in another room, on the radio, in a meme, sung by a colleague. Audio branding research consistently shows sonic assets among the strongest triggers of brand recall, and Just Eat built one deliberately, then spent celebrity money amplifying the asset rather than replacing it.
Compare that with the standard approach: hire a celebrity, build the ad around them, watch the equity walk out of the door when the contract ends. Just Eat inverted it. The celebrity was the guest. The jingle was the star.
The principle
Invest in assets you own, then rent fame to amplify them. A distinctive asset that survives every campaign, a sound, a phrase, a character, compounds for years. Anything built around a hired face depreciates the day they leave.
Steal this
No small business is booking Snoop Dogg. Every small business can own a sound, a phrase or a ritual.
Find your repeatable asset. A phrase you answer the phone with, a sign-off on every video, a sound, a uniform, a van colour. The test is repetition: something you could still be using, unchanged, in ten years.
Make it singable, sayable or copyable. ‘Did somebody say’ works because people can perform it. If customers can repeat your asset to each other, they become your media plan.
When you spend on promotion, amplify the asset, do not replace it. A local sponsorship, a radio spot, an influencer collab should all carry the same phrase or sound, so every pound deposits into the same memory.
Read the room before you press go. Just Eat delayed a finished campaign for five weeks because the moment was wrong. Timing discipline costs nothing and saves reputations.
Sources & further reading
- Snoop Dogg adds some bling to Just Eat’s jingle · The Drum
- Why Just Eat waited five weeks to launch · Campaign
- Christina Aguilera and Latto take the jingle on · Just Eat Takeaway
The Whito verdict
Just Eat spent celebrity money the right way round: on amplifying an asset it owned rather than renting one it did not. Three superstars have now passed through the same jingle, and the jingle is the only one still under contract.
The takeaway for a smaller business is not the budget, it is the order of operations. Build the repeatable asset first. Then let every promotion, however small, make the same deposit. Most businesses do it backwards and wonder why nothing sticks.
Scale Stage
What do customers actually remember about you?
Get a free Growth Report and find out whether your marketing is building one memorable asset or scattering across forgettable campaigns.
Frequently asked questions
How much did Just Eat pay Snoop Dogg for the jingle ad?
Tabloid reports put the fee at £5.3m, but Just Eat’s brand chief publicly called the quoted figures ‘far too high’, so the true number was never confirmed. What is verifiable is the result: 4 million views in three days, 98% positive sentiment and Google’s top YouTube ad of 2020.
Why has the ‘Did Somebody Say’ jingle lasted so long?
Because the jingle, not the celebrity, is the brand asset. Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry, and Christina Aguilera with Latto have each fronted the same tune since 2020. Each star amplifies the asset and moves on, while the sonic property stays with Just Eat and keeps compounding.
How can a small business apply the jingle strategy?
Create one repeatable asset you own: a phrase, a sound, a sign-off, a visual ritual. Make it easy for customers to repeat, keep it unchanged for years, and point every bit of promotion at it so each pound builds the same memory rather than a new one.
