Harness the Hype: What Marketers Can Learn From The Devil Wears Prada 2

The 20-year wait was well worth it for the fashion flick, The Devil Wears Prada 2, and the nostalgic pull, brand partnerships, and clever marketing are partly to thank. 

From 181.5 million views in the teaser’s first 24 hours (that made it the most-viewed comedy trailer in 15 years), to the full trailer’s 222 million views in 24 hours, there was immediate demand and interest from the start. The film then opened with $233.6 million worldwide, including $77 million domestic and $156.6 million international, proving that this movie was more than hype and social buzz. 

Nostalgia is not enough to drive an entire campaign. The marketing team for DWP2 was deliberate and strategic to turn talk into ticket sales. 

1. "Gird your loins" | Nostalgia works with similar lingo

One of the smartest aspects of this campaign was how heavily it leaned into recognizable cultural shorthand instead of trying to reinvent the property. Marketing Brew reported that brands flocked to the sequel because “everybody gets it,” and Coca-Cola’s smartwater team described the original film’s moments, lines, and references as a “shared language” brands could tap into instantly. The amount of time the blue sweater scene is quoted, or even simply saying “That’s all,” to a friend — Devil Wears Prada lives within our day to day. Effective nostalgia marketing does not solely ride on the past’s coat tails, but gives viewers a familiar code they already understand and want to repeat.

That is why so many partnerships centered on iconic Devil Wears Prada cues: cerulean, Runway magazine, Miranda Priestly’s taste level, fashion closets, assistants carrying coffee, the unsupportive ex-boyfriend, and high-gloss editorial visuals. Smartwater built a cerulean game and special-edition bottles; M&M’S launched an “all cerulean” pack; Diet Coke created Runway-inspired activations; and Starbucks even turned assistants in green trench coats into a red-carpet stunt. None of those ideas would have worked if they had been arbitrary. They worked because they were instantly recognizable to fans. 

Marketing Takeaway

If you are going to borrow from culture, borrow from the parts people can recognize in half a second. Memory is powerful, but recognition is what makes a campaign work. Plus, you don’t want your audience to have to take leaps and bounds to connect with your work. Keep it simple. Keep it familiar. 

2. “Are you wearing the Chanel boots?” | The best partnerships have their own style

Marketing Brew called out a real risk with a campaign this saturated: when too many brands pile in, consumers can start to feel overloaded, and authenticity can suffer. That warning is important because The Devil Wears Prada 2 had a long list of official partners, including TRESemmé, L’Oréal, Zillow, Samsung, Old Navy, smartwater, Diet Coke, Starbucks, Tweezerman, Google, and Walmart. In crowded cultural moments, relevance matters more than participation.

The examples that stood out were the ones that felt integrated rather than opportunistic. Zillow’s team told Marketing Brew that its role was “woven into the fabric of the story,” not merely stuck on top of it. TRESemmé moved early to lock down the hair-care category globally, then activated through limited-edition products, campaign creative, and fashion-week/premiere experiences. Smartwater took the film’s cerulean monologue and translated it into both product and play. These are stronger than generic co-brands because they feel native to the world of the film rather than optimizing on the moment for moment’s sake. 

Marketing Takeaway

The best collaborations answer “Why this brand, for this property, right now?”
If that answer is fuzzy, the audience will feel it.
Be a part of a moment because it makes sense for your brand, not just because you have FOMO. 

3. “You know how that thrills me” | Experiential elements were enticing

If nostalgia gave the campaign emotional fuel, experiential marketing gave it momentum. Event Marketer reported that Disney and its partners turned the Lincoln Center world premiere into a runway-style environment rather than a standard movie red carpet, with the event streamed across Disney+, Hulu, TikTok, and ABC News. The execution included a Dior VIP lounge, Samsung’s first-ever “Runway Cam” on the red carpet, a Mercedes-Maybach shoe cam, Zillow’s elevator photo op, a TRESemmé touch-up station, and a L’Oréal cover installation guests could physically step into.

Outside the premiere, partners extended the campaign through pop-ups and public-facing experiences: Grey Goose’s “Cerulean Goose” carts in New York, Diet Coke Runway-style newsstands in London and Manchester, Google’s virtual try-on fashion closet, and theater/location-based activations. Event Marketer reported that Disney worked with 20 official promotional partners, some of them nearly two years in the making.

Marketing Takeaway 

Participation keeps people invested. Audiences want to step into, photograph, and be a part of the experience. That is how legacy IP becomes contemporary social currency.

4. “That’s all” | Relevant relationships

One reason The Devil Wears Prada 2 campaign appears to have traveled so well is that the partnerships were category-fit. Beauty, fashion, beverage, luxury auto, and tech all had credible roles to play in the film’s orbit. Even when the products were mass-market, the campaign styling elevated them to feel part of the same editorial universe. As Marketing Brew noted, the movie had already written the playbook for natural extension opportunities because the brand world around Runway is inherently commercial, stylish, and reference-rich.

That matters for marketers trying to “newsjack” or trend-hop. 

Marketing Takeaway

Relevance is not just showing up when everyone is paying attention, it has to make sense for your brand. The Devil Wears Prada 2 campaign did not succeed because every brand wanted in; it succeeded because many of the participating brands had a believable role in the story world. It’s like when every brand tried to be on TikTok even when it didn’t make sense for the audience. Don’t hop on a bandwagon “just cause.”

5. "Your incompetence does not interest me” | Targeting the right audience

The entertainment industry often talks about cultural relevance in abstract terms. This campaign translated it into revenue. The Wall Street Journal reported that Disney saw nostalgia for the original cast and iconic moments as a core reason for the film’s breakout opening, especially among Millennial and Gen X women. The opening weekend result—about $233.6 million globally—was not just strong for a sequel; it outperformed many franchise releases that arrived with bigger budgets and louder IP machinery.

Marketing Takeaway

Nostalgia is often undervalued when it is attached to properties perceived as “niche,” gender specific, or fashion-focused. But this campaign demonstrated that a sharply targeted, culturally fluent, female-led phenomenon can scale globally when the marketing understands their audience.

What marketers should take away

• First, nostalgia works best when it is specific. Use the references people can recognize in a second and don’t take too long to piece together. 

• Second, brand partnerships need a real role to play. The most effective collaborations in this campaign felt embedded in the film’s world.

• Third, experiential amplifies cultural relevance. When audiences can step into a campaign instead of just watching it, the story lasts longer and travels further.

• Fourth, relevance is about fit. The brands that showed up well here did so because they belonged in the conversation. That is a much stronger position than simply chasing attention.

• And finally, hype is only valuable when it converts. Trailer views, social chatter, partnership volume, premiere buzz, and audience turnout all need to point in the same direction. In this case, they did.

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What The Devil Wears Prada 2 got right (besides being a perfect movie and a blast from the past) is that nostalgia is just the beginning. DWP2 used our emotional attachment for the fashionable film as a driving force for a campaign that then envelopes the audience and includes them in a more personal experience and partners with brands that get it. 

And that is the real lesson for marketers: do not just chase hype. Harness it.

Honorable ad mention cause the Miranda boyfriend ended up being a cutie!