Cup Noodles + Top Ramen · 2026
The
Ideas.
Concept deck template — drop each new idea into the slide type built for it.
01 / 23
The
02 / 23The North Star
Two brands. Two very different truths.
Cup Noodles
Unapologetically
Itself.
Itself.
Doesn't need to be cool. It already is. The billionaire and the broke share the same cup. The biggest movie star of his generation eats it. The megastar who just won a Grammy eats it at 2am. None of them need to be asked. None of them should be.
The edge
Culturally real · Universally earned · No invite needed
Top Ramen
The Product Is a Blank Canvas.
We Find The Artists.
We Find The Artists.
For the culinary creative. The person who adds an egg, wagyu, a whole roasted garlic clove and calls it dinner. They've been doing extraordinary things with Top Ramen for years — in taco stands, in Michelin kitchens, in backrooms. We don't create the creativity. We find it. Then we show it.
The brand's job
Most culturally credible noodle
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Section 01
Cup
Noodles.
Where culture already is.
04 / 23
Cup Noodles · Cultural Appearances
Where culture
already is.
The most powerful Cup Noodles content of the last year wasn't planned. Timothée Chalamet posted himself making Cup Noodles before the Golden Globes — no brief, no budget, no ask — and it went everywhere. That's the model: three creators who don't bring Cup Noodles into their world. It already lives there. We're just making it official.
05 / 23Cup Noodles · Cultural Appearances · The Talent
Three creators. Three formats. One product that shows up uninvited.
Creator 01 · @drpeppermanofficial
The Switch.
Dr. Pepperman hands out Dr. Peppers to strangers and A-listers alike — always viral, 1M+ views a reel. For this run the product switches: Cup Noodles goes in his hand, and he walks each person to the nearest microwave, collecting their story while it heats.
1M+ views / reel · zero script
Creator 02 · @shanonthestreet
The Mic.
Shan Rizwan's street-interview format pays $100 for three right answers — the mic in his hand is his signature. Now the mic is a Cup Noodles. When someone wins, he peels back the lid to reveal the cash, and the crowd's already asking if there are actual noodles in it.
Serialized format · repeatable payoff
Creator 03 · @computahh
The Program.
Computahh plays a hacker character who types a command onto an oversized keyboard — DISTRIBUTE_CUP_NOODLES_TO_ALL_HUMANS_IN_RADIUS — hits enter, and Cup Noodles appears in someone's hands. One prop, one character, infinite variations.
Character-native · instantly clippable
Sample Reel · Dr. Pepperman
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Sample Reel · Shan
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Sample Reel · computahh
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06 / 23Cup Noodles · The Origin Story
Spicy Birria Beef.
Born at the taco stand.
Washington Heights. A family taqueria on the same corner for twenty years. No written menu, birria in the pot since before sunrise. Someone walked up with Cup Noodles and asked the taquero to do something with it. He did — and it was extraordinary. That discovery became the Spicy Birria Beef flavor on shelves now. The product has real roots; the story is the marketing.
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Cup Noodles · Outdoor
The numbers
do all the work.
No celebrity, no campaign concept, no clever copy — the numbers behind Cup Noodles are large enough to become their own argument, and strange enough to stop someone cold on a sidewalk. Two directions, both true, living in different environments.
08 / 23Cup Noodles · Outdoor · The Executions
50 billion all time. Or stacked to the moon.
Option A · Building Wrap
50,000,000,000.
That's how many Cup Noodles have been eaten since 1971. We lost count too.
29/secCups eaten somewhere in the world, every second
6xEnough for every person on Earth — six times over
55Years on shelves since the first cup in 1971
Large format · heritage play
Option B · Wheatpaste
Passes the moon.
Eleven times.
Eleven times.
Stack every Cup Noodles ever sold end to end and the line clears the moon — eleven times over.
5.5xRound trip to the moon and back, cup to cup
1971The year the stack started climbing
Still
climbingEvery cup sold today adds another inch
climbingEvery cup sold today adds another inch
Street level · scale as spectacle
The Media Split
Not competing executions — they live in different places. Option A goes on the building, Option B goes on the wall, each a single mind-bending scale comparison. Fairfax and Melrose get street-level paste; the Arts District gets the large-format wrap, timed to the week the Top Ramen pop-up opens.
09 / 23The Limited Drop · Cup Noodles
One artist. One run. Never again.
The sneaker-release model applied exactly. A streetwear artist with real cultural credibility designs the entire object — not a logo collab. Full creative control. Drop announced 48 hours out, SNKRS-style. Ships once.
The Mechanic
Sells Out in Minutes.
Drop 48 hours out, sells out in minutes, hits StockX at $40 within the hour. A $0.25 product reselling for $40 is the press story — you never need to pitch it.
SNKRS-style · StockX in an hour
The Promotion
The Artist Is the Reach.
The artist announcement is the first press moment — their audience covers it before you say a word. The 48-hour window creates urgency. Sellout post, then the StockX screenshot circulates on its own.
Artist-led · urgency · organic
The Clipping
The Resale Climbs Live.
Hypebeast, Highsnobiety, Complex, Sole Collector pick it up organically if the artist is right. The climbing resale price gets clipped in real time. Sneaker, food, and CPG communities document the conversation themselves.
Hypebeast · Complex · real-time resale
The Key
The most affordable food on earth becomes the most coveted object of the week. That gap is the entire brand.
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Top Ramen + Cup Noodles · Trading Card Collaboration
The rare card inside the box.
Promo cards are one of the biggest forces in trading card culture — a single chase card sends people running to the store. We put them inside select six-packs of Cup Noodles. We're already in conversation with Bandai — parent company behind Dragon Ball Z and Naruto trading cards — about making one of these real, with Naruto's new card game about to launch.
The Partner
Bandai × Dragon Ball Z / Naruto.
A live conversation with Bandai, the company behind both IPs' trading cards. They're open to Dragon Ball Z, and to Naruto specifically as its new card game is about to launch — prime timing for a debut collab.
Live conversation · two IPs in play
The Mechanic
The Box Is the Pack.
Limited promo cards seeded into select six-packs of Cup Noodles. Chase rares, numbered variants — the things collectors hunt for. A grocery run becomes a pull.
Chase rares · retail run · repeat purchase
The Engine
Streamers Rip Boxes.
Box breaks are already a format with a built-in audience. Streamers and collectors tear through six-packs on camera hunting the rare pull — we just give them the best reason to film one.
Box-break content · built-in TCG audience
Promo Card · Reference
Dragon Ball Z / Naruto card mockup
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Box · Reference
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Box Break · Reference
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Cup Noodles · Heritage
Back to space.
Space Ram Reel
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Section 02
Top
Ramen.
The best bowl you've ever had.
13 / 23Top Ramen · Experiential · Los Angeles
The best bowl of Top Ramen you've ever had. $8. One weekend.
Sursur Lee takes over a high-traffic location for two days — one or two dishes, her menu, her call. The branding is quiet, the signage minimal, and you find out the morning of. The line is the campaign.
The Concept
Hole in the wall. On purpose.
A walk-up pop-up built around Sursur's take on Top Ramen — no reservations, no countdown, no event branding. $8 a bowl, chef-acclaimed, one weekend only.
Walk-up only · Q4 2026
The Location
20 million people already there.
Scouting The Grove and The Americana at Brand — both top-15 shopping centers globally by sales per square foot. The Grove alone draws 20M visitors a year, 49K a day, a quarter of them tourists.
20M annual visitors
The Build
Food-festival footprint. Fine-dining result.
Toppings pre-made, broth held hot, noodles cooked fresh on-site — the only live heat moment. No elaborate buildout. The lo-fi setting is the concept; the food is not.
Sursur Lee confirmed
The Key
Top Ramen doesn't need a campaign. It needs a chef who makes people line up for it.
14 / 23Top Ramen · Experiential · The Format
LA is the proof. Then it goes everywhere.
01
Lock the location
High-traffic, minimal buildout. The Grove or Americana in Q4 — quotes in progress.
02
Sursur builds the menu
One or two dishes, her interpretation, Top Ramen noodles as the base.
03
Location drops the morning of
Announced on Sursur's channels first; Top Ramen reposts immediately after.
04
Document everything
Line, bowl, reaction, first-bite content. Two days on-site, weeks of output.
The Traveling Format
Same concept. New chef. New city. New press story.
LA — Sursur LeeQ4 2026
NYCTBD
ChicagoTBD
MiamiTBD
One format · four cities · four stories
15 / 23Top Ramen · Streamer Campaign
A year of Top Ramen. One hashtag away.
The Activation
A streamer gets clipped.
A streamer opens a year's supply of Top Ramen on camera, unprompted — pure reaction content. At the end of the clip, they lay down the challenge to their audience: recreate it, tag it, and you could win the same thing.
Streamer-native · zero brief
The Card
The Top Ramen Card.
Like Chipotle's gold card — a physical card that unlocks a year of free Top Ramen. Not one winner: the card gets awarded to a new entry throughout the month, so the prize keeps showing up in people's feeds.
Multiple winners · recurring reveal
The Hashtag
One month. One hashtag.
Fans post their own Top Ramen recipe under the campaign hashtag for a shot at the card. Every post is content Nissin can reuse — the best entries get clipped into a running highlight reel across the month.
30-day window · community-voted
Why This Works
The entry is the content, and the giveaway never feels stale because the winners don't stop. The strongest recipe clips become the segue into the Ando Award submission call.
16 / 23The Ando Award · Top Ramen
An award for chefs who never stop.
Young chefs submit their most innovative dish made with Top Ramen — not the best recipe, the most creative one. Named for Momofuku Ando, who invented Space Ram at 94. Victor Solomon designs the trophy. Nick DiGiovanni judges it and presents it on his channel.
The Mechanic
The object. The episode. The prize.
Victor Solomon — trophy designer for the NBA, NFL, and Olympics — builds the Ando Award. Chefs under 30 submit a two-minute dish video. Nick DiGiovanni reviews finalists and presents the trophy on camera, plus a cash award.
Under 30 · cash prize
The Promotion
Four press beats. One announcement.
Solomon's trophy reveal draws design and sports press before a submission arrives. Sursur shares it with food media. Nick opens submissions to 41.7M subscribers. His judging episode airs the winner.
Five press beats
The Content Engine
Every entry is content.
Submissions are public — Top Ramen clips the best ones all month. Nick's judging episode reaches his full audience as standalone entertainment. The winning dish is served at the Space pop-up.
A month of organic content
The Key
Ando never stopped innovating. The award exists to prove nobody has to.
17 / 23The Ando Award · Top Ramen · The Talent
The people who make it real.
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Trophy reference
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The Trophy
Victor Solomon
Designer of championship trophies carried off fields and courts by the greatest athletes in the world. The Ando trophy carries the same weight — an object worth a career display case.
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Sursur Lee reference
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The Chef
Sursur Lee
Confirmed. Chef, Top Ramen collaborator, and the culinary voice inside the ecosystem — her announcement carries food-press credibility on day one.
The Episode Host
Nick DiGiovanni
@nick.digiovanni
41.7M
YouTube
13.5M
TikTok
4.3M
Instagram
Time100 Creators List. Forbes 30 Under 30. NYT #1 bestselling cookbook. Films the judging episode, presents the trophy, puts 41.7M subscribers behind the ceremony.
+1.7M subscribers / month
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Section 03
The Big
Bets.
One-line framing for the swings worth taking beyond the feed.
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The Legacy Plays
Fifty years of firsts.
1958
Momofuku Ando invents instant ramen.
1971
Cup Noodles launches and redefines the category.
2005
Space Ram flies to the ISS.
Every idea in this deck isn't a departure from that history — it's the next line in it. A brand that's been first before has the right to keep showing up first.
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The Sizzle
Sample reel. One look and feel.
Sample 01
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Sample 02
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Sample 03
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Sample 05
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The Grid · What Intentional Looks Like
Nine posts. One point of view.
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@handle · Drop 9 posts to build the grid
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The Bigger Picture
Not a content plan.
A point of view.
Every idea in this deck already lives in culture — a creator's feed, a chef's menu, a streamer's chat, a fan's kitchen. Cup Noodles and Top Ramen don't need to be introduced to any of it. They just need to show up.
23 / 23The Ask
Give us the room to build it.
Every idea here is ready to greenlight — talent is identified, locations are being scouted, and nothing is waiting on a brief.
In The Wild creator rolloutQ3 2026
Top Ramen Pop-Up · LAQ4 2026
Streamer Challenge · Reserve cardQ4 2026
Cup Noodles OOH splitQ1 2027
The Ando AwardQ1 2027
The Bottom Line
We have the brand.
We have the ideas.
Let's go.
We have the ideas.
Let's go.
Two icons, one strategy: stop making ads for the feed, start showing up in culture.
Nissin · 2026 · Gasoline