SharkNinja Turns Product Pain Points Into Viral Fandom

Most brands treat virality like weather: unpredictable, occasionally thrilling, impossible to plan around. SharkNinja treats it like an engineering spec.

That distinction sat at the center of a Shoptalk Fall 2026 keynote on the Brand Storytelling Stage. Michelle Crossan-Matos, Chief Brand & Experience Officer at SharkNinja, joined the stage with Sarah Engel, President of January Digital. Together they explained how a kitchen appliance company built a fandom usually reserved for entertainment brands.

Virality starts in product design, not in the content calendar

SharkNinja launches roughly 25 products a year across 40 categories. The company runs about $7 billion in revenue on that pace, a volume Crossan-Matos described almost casually. What makes the pace work is where marketing sits in the process. It is inside product development, 18 months before launch, not downstream of it. “I’m working with engineers as a marketing and creative person, upstream, designing the product with them,” she said.

The payoff shows up in the product itself. One cooler keeps sandwiches from going soggy. One hair straightener builds combs into the plates to solve what the team calls the Jason method. SharkNinja frames each one as a consumer pain point first and a product second. That is why fandom attaches to something as unglamorous as a blender.

The Writers’ Room Never Stops

SharkNinja is taking its Boston writers’ room global. People who have written for Hollywood productions staff part of the room. Crossan-Matos was direct about why a weekly cadence no longer works. In a social-first environment, the team has to watch what is trending and move on it the same day. That room produces hookbooks: pre-built angles for affiliates and creators. An affiliate selling the latest Creami already knows which framing performs.

Creators carry the story further than any campaign could

Creators make seventy percent of SharkNinja’s content, not the brand itself. Crossan-Matos treats that split as the engine of the fandom, not a byproduct of it. One protein ice cream product generated a billion impressions last year. People sharing their own recipes and routines drove almost all of it. The company maps creator tiers on purpose, from micro creators and employees up to athletes like Tom Brady. It manages each tier differently. In her words, every type communicates with the brand in its own way.

Fame Rides the Fandom

Partnerships with Tom Brady, David Beckham, Kevin Hart, and McLaren are not where SharkNinja’s storytelling starts. Crossan-Matos was clear that the brand builds from the product up. It then uses big names to link communities already built around specific products on Reddit and TikTok Shop. A quick search of her own turned up more than 200 communities she could tap directly. Celebrity reach, in this model, amplifies an audience that already exists rather than manufacturing one from scratch.

Every Function Owns the Launch

The operational engine behind 25 launches a year is a standing weekly meeting. Engineering, product development, marketing, and creative sit in one room for five to six hours. Together they review upcoming launches and debate color, design, and creative material as a single group. Crossan-Matos called it a machine.

The comparison to kitchen appliances is telling. When SharkNinja expanded into beauty and hair care, the team rebuilt its marketing playbook instead of assuming the kitchen model would transfer. The new playbook centers on channels like TikTok Shop and DTC, which now account for 30 to 50 percent of sales depending on the market.

A week off the clock rebuilt the marketing team’s tools

Six months ago, SharkNinja shut down for a week. All 4,000 employees, including roughly 1,400 engineers, spent that week building AI-driven solutions to their own biggest pain points. For Crossan-Matos, that week produced an agentic fleet, a single source of truth for consumer data. It also produced a new hybrid team she described as part human, part agentic. She called the current moment a golden age for marketing. There is no longer an excuse for not knowing what the consumer is saying.

What this means for senior marketers