• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer, Yesterday

For a brand that describes itself as a challenger, Archer Meat Snacks just landed some serious company. The Los Angeles-based maker of clean-ingredient beef and turkey sticks is launching a 360-degree promotional campaign tied to "Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu," with the theatrical release hitting screens May 22. The campaign includes co-branded packaging, and an ad running on Disney+, Spectrum Reach's sports inventory and in theaters.

Andrew Thomas, senior vice president of marketing, tells CPG Insider how the deal came together and what will have to happen for the campaign to count as a win.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CPG Insider: Archer Meats is growing fast, but even with 2026 sales expected to hit $500 million this year, you are still relatively small compared to snacking giants. How did you end up in a galaxy far, far away?

Thomas: It honestly fell into our lap in the best possible way. We had done a big trade PR push around our rebrand, followed by our LA Dodgers partnership and then our "Stick to Real" consumer campaign, running on Dodgers game broadcasts. I got a LinkedIn message from someone on the partnerships team at Disney who had seen our ad during a Dodgers game and thought we'd be a great fit.

I always say: Had I sent them a cold message, they never would have answered. The fact that our trade PR engine — the LinkedIn presence, the Dodgers visibility, all of it — resulted in Disney coming to us was just wonderful.

CPG Insider: And you are a "Star Wars" fan yourself?

Thomas: Huge fan. All the Mandalorian seasons, all the films. So when Disney mentioned the "Mandalorian & Grogu" movie, I knew we had found our tentpole event for 2026. We wanted something more culturally relevant. 

And this fit our target consumer perfectly: the health-minded mom who wants her kids to eat healthy, too. And Grogu — he's always eating snacks. Every episode, he's eating something. The tie-in to our mini sticks felt natural.

CPG Insider: Did that make the creative process straightforward?

Thomas: Not exactly. We couldn't show Grogu eating a mini stick. Disney is rightfully very protective of its IP and canon. I give their creative team enormous credit — they figured out how to make the ad feel seamlessly integrated while keeping the guardrails in place.

CPG Insider: Where will consumers actually see all this?

Thomas: The lion's share of the video media is on Disney+, where we're owning the "Star Wars" hub from April 27 through May 25. On May 22, when the movie releases, anyone on the ad-supported tier will be served the spot when they log on.

We're also running on YouTube, on Spectrum during the NBA and NHL playoffs, and we bought cinema inventory, so the spot will run in theaters before the film itself. Out-of-home is in New York and L.A. There's also a Fandango consumer promotion — spend $25 on Archer products, get a $10 movie reward.

CPG Insider: This feels like a bigger national footprint than you've had before -- correct?

Thomas: Our "Stick to Real" campaign, which launched last August and is still running, was L.A.-amplified because of the Dodgers partnership, but the broader media buy — connected TV, dynamic mobile display, paid social, YouTube inventory on home TV screens — has always been nationally targeted. This is building on that. The Dodgers gave us a great market to anchor on, but our consumer is everywhere.

CPG Insider: Does it feel like a different kind of moment for the brand?

Thomas: Absolutely. A little bit of a pinch-me moment, honestly. Not only did we get the outreach, but Lucasfilm and the film's producers had to sign off on our proposal — our letter of intent, what we planned to spend, everything. For "Star Wars"to look at Archer and say, yeah, you're the right partner — that made us feel like we'd finally arrived.

CPG Insider: What metrics are you watching most closely?

Thomas: First, awareness. We're the fourth-largest meat snack brand in the country, but our aided awareness is somewhere between 10th and 11th — there's a big gap to close. We run a brand health tracker monthly, and we'll be watching awareness and consideration closely during and after the campaign.

But we're also in the business of selling product. The piece that's maybe less exciting than a Disney ad spot, but arguably more important, is what happens in-store. Three of our SKUs have the Mandalorian IP on pack, with a QR code linking to the Fandango promotion. Walmart and Target are giving us end-cap displays. We're going to be watching in-store velocities — units per store per week — very carefully.