Key facts
- Brands are increasingly collaborating on co-branded products to gain attention and acquire new customers.
- Some collaborations aim to create unique, exciting products that neither brand could achieve alone.
- Critics argue that many collaborations are unoriginal marketing ploys that lack genuine creativity.
- Liquid Death's vice president of creative, Andy Pearson, states the company aims to create genuine entertainment rather than just marketing points.
- Quentin Humphrey, director at WGSN, describes successful collaborations as creating 'new worlds' rather than 'world renting'.
- Gap has seen success with collaborations, with nearly a third of collab purchasers being new to the brand.
Companies are increasingly engaging in cross-brand collaborations, often pairing seemingly disparate products or entities to capture consumer attention in a crowded market. Recent examples include Dunkin' and L.L.Bean's tote bag and sweater, JELL-O and Tower 28's lip gloss, and Mane and Cinnabon's lip balm and hairbrush.
From a corporate standpoint, these partnerships are seen as a straightforward way to generate revenue and create buzz. However, the effectiveness of these collaborations is debated. While some create genuinely novel and exciting products, others are criticized for being uninspired, merely slapping logos onto existing items as a customer acquisition tactic.
Gabriel Whaley, founder and CEO of MSCHF, suggests that many collaborations are a substitute for genuine risk-taking. Liquid Death, known for its unconventional partnerships, aims to create "genuine entertainment" rather than just marketing. Andy Pearson, vice president of creative at Liquid Death, explains their approach involves ideas that sound absurd but are backed by a coherent strategy, focusing on making things that "either make a ton of sense or make zero sense."
Quentin Humphrey, director at WGSN, emphasizes that successful collaborations create "new worlds" that neither brand could build alone, contrasting this with "world renting," where one brand merely borrows another's audience. He notes that collaborations used to feel like events but now often resemble "inventory with a storyline."
Key elements of successful collaborations include limited duration, product range, and units, with partners being complementary and the tie-up making intuitive sense while expanding brand representation. However, many brands fail to create anything truly special, leading to consumer indifference. Thomai Serdari, a luxury marketing professor at NYU, attributes this trend to brands struggling to develop new ideas for fragmented markets and capture the attention of younger, often "brand agnostic" consumers.
Gap has found success, reporting that nearly a third of its collaboration purchasers are new to the brand, and attributes growth among younger consumers to these efforts. Ali Furman, consumer markets industry leader at PwC, notes that collaborations also help brands navigate rapidly accelerating consumer trend cycles by borrowing relevance in specific moments.