How MrBeast and OpenFortune Made Marketing History

You might not know the name Jimmy Donaldson. But you absolutely know the name MrBeast.

With over 467 million YouTube subscribers and 1B followers across all social platforms, MrBeast is rightfully dubbed the world’s biggest – and most successful – content creator.

Alongside his vast digital empire, MrBeast’s ventures also include everything from a fast-growing international chocolate brand (Feastables) to Prime Video’s most-watched unscripted series in the streamer’s history, Beast Games.

It would have been a no-brainer then for Season 2 Beast Games: Strong vs. Smart’s promos to run entirely on digital strategy. We’re talking the usual string of partnerships, cross-promotions, and paid media that (with a face like MrBeast behind the whole engine) would likely have spread like pixelated wildfire.

But instead, MrBeast partnered with OpenFortune to do something radically different: Promote his flagship reality show via millions of real-life micro moments across the United States and Europe.

Think about it: When you already dominate the internet, your next frontier can’t simply be piling on more digital awareness. It’s about owning the IRL experience.

In fact, Beast Games’ S2 promotion also presented a unique but pressing question for all forward-looking marketers: How do you extend a once-in-a-generation digital phenomenon into the “real world,” to many consumers who feel increasingly fatigued and disconnected from it? And do so authentically, without turning to gimmicks or one-off promos?

Starting January 13, 2026, millions of Beast Games-branded fortune cookies hit restaurants and takeout delivery bags across major international markets, including the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

For MrBeast and his Beast Games team, part of the strategy lay in the scale — a scale that had to be worthy of the world’s largest digital creator:

• 2.5 million customized fortune cookies distributed worldwide.

• 24,000 rare, limited-edition, and individually numbered collectable slips snuck into that distribution.

• Fortunes personally co-created by MrBeast.

• A physical memento for fans to keep a permanent piece of the Beast Games legacy.

Once the online buzz began, fans were in suspense about what fortune they might receive. While most cookies contained S2 messaging tied to Strong vs. Smart themes, a rare subset contained handwritten-styled messages straight from MrBeast himself — turning this tiny slip of paper into a cherished, tangible collectible.

No one could predict what came next.

Worldwide fans became so enamored with the promotion, they did what no media buy could ever manufacture: actively hunting down and reselling the MrBeast x OpenFortune fortune slips as collectibles. 

With only 2,000 coveted specialty fortunes ever printed, these little slips of paper took on a life of their own well beyond the dining table. One even sold on eBay for $3,600. Go ahead and name another piece of advertising that ends up listed under Collectibles & Art.

Rather than inventing a new ritual, the campaign leaned into one that already exists at enormous scale, with cookies creating moments of actual active participation, connection, and meaning in a world of passive impressions.

OpenFortune’s own research shows cookies create a multiplier effect that algorithms today simply can’t match or manufacture.

• 3 billion fortune cookies are consumed annually

• Cookies carry a 92% open rate (beat that, other channels)

• 70% are read aloud or shared at the table

• ~6% on average are organically posted to social

The importance of MrBeast’s OpenFortune partnership cannot be overstated.

The largest digital creator in history chose a physical ritual to extend his brand.

What’s more, he intentionally curated a marketing channel that behaved, itself, like a game — exactly capturing and mirroring the spirit of his hit show.

Yes, the campaign also generated major international and online press. Yes, it triggered social conversation. And yes, QR tracking and brand lift studies were embedded into the rollout and are still earning traction today.

But MrBeast and his team fundamentally understand where we are in contemporary marketing. Today, screens might be ubiquitous. Attention spans might be shrinking. And algorithms might mediate everything to the point of meaningless oblivion. In such an environment, there’s simply no substitute for in-person connection.

When someone opens a Beast Games’ cookie at dinner, laughs aloud, reads it to their fellow diners, maybe even snaps a photo, they’re proving how digital dominance will never replace physical touchpoints. And if the most successful digital creator in the world sees value in putting his message inside a tangible cookie shared around the dinner table…it’s time every brand stopped and paid attention.