It’s become so commonplace that you might not even notice it anymore, but it still generates great excitement in marketing circles. Yes, we’re talking about brand collaboration!
When two of your favorite brands collaborate to create a limited-time product, the joy you feel as a consumer is often unmatched. This relatively simple marketing tactic can help boost a brand’s revenue at up to 25x less cost than digital marketing methods.
Examples of brand collaboration
Still not too sure what we mean by ‘brand collaboration’? It can be tough to think of examples, but there are some brand collaborations that have been going on for such a long time that it doesn’t feel like a collaboration:
- McDonald’s & Marvel/Pokemon/Doraemon and many other movie franchises. The fast food giant frequently partners with these companies to produce toys to go inside their meals for children.
- Supreme and Louis Vuitton. This is a great example of two very different brands collaborating to expand their respective audiences. Both are fashion brands, but Louis Vuitton traditionally appeals to a more mature audience, whereas Supreme is favored by younger people. When they worked together to produce bags, both customer groups were excited to try them.
- Balenciaga and Crocs famously collaborated back in 2021, when they released ‘Balenciaga Stiletto Crocs’. Of course, these shoes weren’t designed with sales in mind, but rather increasing publicity for both brands. Since becoming an internet meme, both Balenciaga and Crocs will have benefitted from the extra coverage.
So, why do brands collaborate?
As can be seen in the few examples given above, there are two main reasons a brand would consider teaming up with another brand to produce a product, content, or other marketing materials:
- The brands want to create new content for their own audience, so partner up with other brands to spice up their offering.
- The brands occupy relatively similar domains, so they work together to produce something which will capture the imagination of each other’s audience, therefore growing their own.
These reasons can be broken down further into smaller reasons, which could also be key drivers for brands to collaborate:
- Brands might want to dramatically boost their following on social media, which could be achieved through increased exposure to collaboration.
- Create new opportunities for customer feedback. A collaboration is sure to get a brand hearing from its customer base!
- Similarly, an inspiring collaboration could promote more user-generated content like forum posts, reviews, or even memes.
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Jack Vale is a writer in partnership with Tablebases.com, leading supplier of table bases for business and homes.
