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Go ahead and add Ronald McDonald and Travis Scott to the list of unlikely 2020 team ups, as the world’s hottest rapper and the world’s biggest burger joint recently unveiled a limited time promotion, the first celebrity-branded meal at McDonald's since the Michael Jordan extra value meal in the mid 1990s. 

We’ve been doing Retail Industry Reports for quite some time, and while each is uniquely insightful, we’ve found they generally tend to cover the same verticals (fashion and apparel, electronics, home improvement, toys, etc.) and the same topics (omnicahnnel, in-store experiences, purchase trends etc.). These are all important, of course, but for our 2020 Retail Industry Report, we wanted to look a bit more into the future and a bit more off the beaten path.

Yeah, I guess we have to talk about Popeye’s chicken sandwich now.  

Ok, let’s talk about toys. Your humble blogger just spent a week-long family reunion marveling as his slew of nieces passed the hours watching other people open toys on YouTube. Subsequent investigation led me the following set of understandings: 1) LOL Surprise dolls are the hottest toy on the planet, 2) Children are as happy watching people open them on YouTube as they are playing with them themselves, and, 3) They are a manufacturing market research marvel.

Celebrity increasingly drives digital purchases—as we described last week, this is already happening in fashion where Rihanna and Kylie Jenner are as hot as hot can be. But does celebrity drive restaurant traffic?