Branding Challenge Archives

It’s another week of the Olympics of Drag Race! RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 3 was “Drag Race World,” a tricky commercial challenge that paired personal branding with creating a marketable immerse experience. It was paired with a franchise-favorite “Ruveal Yourself” runway.

This was one of those “is the challenge bad or are the queens not getting it” weeks of Drag Race for me.

The assignment was to advertise an experiential VIP fan experience unique to the brand of each queen’s drag. Effectively, queens had to make commercials for themselves – and for what it would be like to meet them in person.

Some queens got the VIP experience part, and some queens got the brand part, but only a handful of queens were able to marry them in a way that made sense, was funny, and also was something sellable.

That lead one queen to ruveal more than just a runway look, but also a previously-secret talent she has kept under wraps through her entire Drag Race experience. It also gave us a fresh pair of winners, one surprisingly near-flop, and two very different senses of humor on the runway from a pair of UK queens. That lead to a number of shakeups in our power ranking compared to last week’s fairytale-themed “Happy Ending Ball” challenge.

(Want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World outside of the UK? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 6 was a two-for-one “Welcome to the DollHouse” challenge that tested the queens in both design and branding as they had to create an outfit for themselves and their own special edition dolls.

This was the first chance this season we’ve had to see the queens flex their intelligence and aptitude for marketing, and it yielded some interesting results.

Many RuPaul’s Drag Race veterans (including Trixie) love to say that the real race begins after the season ends. We’ve seen Drag Race finalists disappear from view and from fan conversation. We’ve also seen early outs lean into their personal brands to become cult favorites amongst the fandom – including Katya and Trixie trailblazing with YouTube content nearly a decade ago, Yuhua Hamasaki with Bootleg Opinions, and Maddy Morphosis with Give It To Me Straight.

That’s why I love it every time the queens are handed a challenge with a marketing element, and this one is one of the best. It’s not about designing an energy drink or making an inane commercial. It’s literally about the queens selling themselves in the form of their own dolls! We’ve seen RuPaul, Manilla Luzon, Alaska, and Trixie all sell their own dolls over the years

The secret to winning this challenge wasn’t just designing a gorgeous garment. The queens needed to figure out a way to create a “Special Edition” of themselves that felt both essential and toyetic. Even if none of them have the chance to create their own dolls, the ability to boil down their brand to a single image will serve them in all of their future merchandising endeavors.

I was delighted to discover that almost this entire cast of queens was up to the challenge, giving us a week with many strong contenders and only a few certified peg-warmers. OMG, get your mind out of the gutter! A “peg warmer” means the figure in a toyline that no one buys, though it stays “warming” the metal pegs that products hang from in a toy story.

So, which queens were a sell-out and which ones, um… got pegged? The results were interesting, and they caused some surprising shuffling compared to last week’s Girl Groups Power Rankings as the picture of our Top 6 becomes increasingly clear.

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win!