All The Brands Copying Drake’s ‘Iceman’ Cover
- Iceman cover art became an instant social media trend, with brands creating their own versions.
- Drake's cultural influence extends beyond music, as brands rush to react to his album releases.
Drake officially stepped back into solo-album mode with Iceman, his first full-length solo release since 2023’s For All The Dogs. But because this is Drake we’re talking about, one album apparently wasn’t enough. In actuality, he didn’t just drop one project — he dropped three: Iceman, Maid of Honour and Habibti, giving fans 43 new songs in one night and turning a regular release Friday into a full-blown Drake holiday.
And while Maid of Honour and Habibti are already getting their rightful shine, Iceman was the one fans knew was coming. That was the project Drake had been building toward for months, with livestreams, Toronto-centered visuals, an ice sculpture stunt, CN Tower projections, and the kind of rollout that reminded people what a real album campaign can still look like when an artist wants the moment to feel big.
Of course, the music has people split — because what Drake release doesn’t? Some listeners are calling it the comeback record they wanted from him after the Kendrick Lamar battle, while others feel like three albums at once is too much to digest and another example of Drake overloading fans with quantity. Either way, the conversation has been loud, and that alone tells you Drake still knows how to make the internet stop what it’s doing.
But regardless of how anybody feels about the songs, the influence is undeniable. The Iceman cover — built around a jeweled hand/glove that clearly nods to Michael Jackson’s iconic look — became its own piece of social media currency almost immediately. Pitchfork even described the cover as Drake visually placing himself in that MJ conversation, with the sequined glove doing much of the talking before fans even pressed play.
And then the brands got busy. Within hours, everybody from sports teams to food chains to government accounts had their own version of the Iceman cover floating around X and Instagram. Some were funny, some were corny, some were random as hell, but all of them said the same thing: Drake still has the kind of cultural reach that makes brands want to jump in before the trend melts.
That’s really the bigger story here. A Drake album cover becoming a meme isn’t new — we saw brands go crazy with the pregnant emoji for Certified Lover Boy, too — but Iceman feels like another reminder that his appeal goes beyond music. Even when people are debating the bars, the beef, the rollout, the reviews or the charts, brands are still treating his drops like cultural events they have to react to in real time.
