Can’t get enough of the budding relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce? Neither can ranch dressing.
Ms. Swift, a 12-time Grammy winner whose stardom has reached new heights this year with the stratospheric success of her Eras Tour, was attending the Kansas City Chiefs’ football game on Sunday — Mr. Kelce plays tight end on the team — when she was photographed next to a plate containing a piece of chicken and two dipping sauces. A fan-run Swift account on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, shared the photo and said one of the dips was “seemingly ranch.”
A frenzy ensued. The post went viral, and brands ranging from Lay’s potato chips to Mercedes’s Formula 1 team jumped to capitalize. The Empire State Building lit up in “ketchup and seemingly ranch” colors.
Heinz announced on Tuesday that it was releasing 100 bottles of a limited-edition version of “Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch” sauce. A spokeswoman for Heinz said that the company had settled on 100 because of an X post from a different Swift fan account that featured side-by-side photos of Mr. Kelce’s number (87) and Ms. Swift wearing a No. 13 jersey.
Hidden Valley ranch dressing renamed its X and Instagram accounts Seemingly Ranch. And Buffalo Wild Wings used the moment to promote its ranch dressing and other dips, referring to several of its dips as “Possibly” Bleu Cheese, “Might Be” Asian Zing and “I Think This Is” Buffalo.
“We love when ranch has a moment in culture and of course wanted to jump in when we saw ‘seemingly ranch’ trending,” said Vicki Haber, a spokeswoman for Hidden Valley. She added that the company had gotten a record number of engagements with its social media posts since changing the name of its accounts.
Most companies that have capitalized on the fervor have done so through targeted social media, not by creating new products, as Heinz did. In a post on X, Lay’s promoted a fake flavor of ranch chips, while Sonic Drive-In posted a fake No. 89 football jersey, a reference to Ms. Swift’s “1989” album.
Ms. Swift’s appearance during the Sunday afternoon broadcast coincided with strong ratings for the game, which Mr. Kelce’s Chiefs won easily over the Chicago Bears. More than 24 million viewers tuned in to Fox, making it the most-watched game of the week. Broadcast cameras frequently focused on Ms. Swift, who sat in a luxury box next to Mr. Kelce’s mother and was seen cheering him on after every big play.
The person running the Eras account on X, who declined to give a name, said in a message over the platform that the attention to the post was completely unexpected and that the business reaction was “quite entertaining.”
“All I hope is if Taylor has seen it, she finds it just as funny as the rest of the internet does,” the person said.
