A guide to getting off the sidelines and triggering explosive growth for your brand
Brand collabs are all the rage right now and like many brand owners you’re likely itching to get off the sidelines and start making headlines for your brand.
Partnerships are the most powerful way to dramatically increase your brand’s revenue, reach, and reputation all the while lowering advertising costs and leveraging every touchpoint you have.
From big sneaker brands like Adidas to small skincare brands like Curie, brands of all kinds are collaborating more than ever before, and for good reason. Brand collaborations help you reach customers in ways advertising can’t.
Through well thought out collaborations can show your customer’s things they would never believe if you merely sold them or ‘sold’ them. Take these 5 keys to the collab kingdon seriously and you’ll soon be collabing like a pro.
Key #1: It’s about customers
If your customers aren’t first, they’re last and what’s more they can smell it. That’s why we put them first in this list. Your customers aren’t just the people who buy your products—they’re also your biggest fans, supporters, and advocates.
The Key to Success: Think Customer First
Brand x Brand collabs exist to excite customers not employees.
Don’t put your excitement before that of your customers. It’s business 101. The customer should always come first, and your collaboration should serve the broadest spectrum of customers of both brands.
You must make collabs strategic
Brand x Brand collabs have to be part of your overall go to market and communications strategy. Making them ‘business as usual’ brings them into the same evaluation methods as any other marketing or channel strategy ideas. By bringing collabs into the mainstream you ensure that you won’t fall in love with the idea to the extent that you alienate your customers.
A great example:
Eva Air x Hello Kitty is one of those most unlikely collaborations that create an exciting customer experience that simply can’t be created any other way.
Traveling can be stressful—even when you’re on vacation. To make plane rides more enjoyable, these brands partnered to create Hello Kitty themed aircraft that showcased adorable animated characters on both the exterior and interior of the planes.
This thoughtful out of the box collaboration has made history, and ten years later, it continues to brighten the lives of weary travelers.
Key #2: Have Clear and Matched Business Objectives
Collaborations are a two-way street: if you plan to succeed, you must also plan for your partner to succeed. If one brand’s goals are unclear, both brands suffer. A great, exciting idea can be the enemy of common sense and will collapse under the weight of uncommon goals.
If you and your partner aren’t on the same page about your strategy, it’s going to be hard to get going and harder to agree on outcomes. In order to align your business objectives, you must understand your shared customers and agree on your shared, and your different objectives.
The Key to Success: Complement your partner
The Hoka X Outdoor Voices collaboration demonstrates how brands can play off each others’ strengths in order to achieve a common goal.
Both brands were eager to connect with customers who wanted to incorporate athleticwear into their everyday wardrobes. Outdoor Voices had a large platform, but no footwear. Hoka had a shoe product that was both high-tech and casual enough for everyday use.
The pair collaborated on an exclusive collection that combined Hoka’s high-tech sneakers with Outdoor Voice’s signature color scheme. The collection was an instant success—Outdoor Voice’s large audience drove Hoka sales through the roof, and Hoka’s high-tech features helped Outdoor Voices strengthen their athletic brand image.
The message is clear. Brand collabs are everyone’s business. When brands come together they form a new team whose impact extends far beyond the original confines of each brand. Everyone is the custodian of the brand and the collab.
Key#3: Your Collab Must Have A Clear Point
Collabs derive much of their power from the messages and meaning they can ‘show’ customers above and beyond what brands can ‘tell’ them through advertising, emails and offers. Collabs invite the customer into a game of exploration that causes them to question the point and should deliver an agreeable positive surprise when they ‘get’ it.
Customers are more likely to engage, invest in, and advocate for your brand when they believe your message is speaking to them in unique ways.
The final acid test of a collab is to ask Will they (your customer) care? And will they share? If customers won’t care or share, you have your answer to whether to go ahead with the collab in its current form.
A great example:
Refinery 29 X Eloquii achieved this through a sincere campaign that spoke to a specific demographic: young, plus-size women. With limited sizing options at fashion-forward stores, shopping can be a harrowing experience for this group.
To solve this problem, Refinery 29 teamed up with Eloquii to create the first-ever crowdsourced plus-size clothing collection. They put the “care” & “share” maxim at the heart of the collab.
Key#4: Your Collaboration Must Excite a New Emotion
Collaborations must inspire customers to do something, and for customers to do something they must first feel something. The type of emotional experience you create for your customers depends on the relationship you want them to have with your brand.
Collabs are a high stakes game. Customer’s expectations of a collab are higher than their expectations for their day to day interactions with the brand. Collabs demand greater attention from the customer and signal that the brand is trying harder to stand apart from the crowd.
When you raise the stakes, you must raise the temperature. Your partnership must help you amplify an existing emotional experience or create an entirely new experience for your customers. Even if the customer isn’t buying this collab, they should still be excited that you tried it and be anticipating the next one as one for them. Maybe they are saving up for it? If they are, they are money.
Collabs built on ‘synergy’ but devoid of ‘energy’ are the walking dead of brand marketing. If the collab needs to be rationalized it won’t leave anyone energized and should be killed before it is delivered DOA.
The Key to Success: Trigger Some Excitement
Clinique and Crayola raised the game by reimagining the makeup application process. Clinique’s Chubby Stick Lipstick was redesigned by the duo to look like colorful crayons.
This collaboration gave customers a way to experience makeup as art with the sensation of drawing on their faces…just as they did as children. It proved so successful that Crayola even introduced their own line of makeup a year later…something it’s hard to believe they would have done beforehand.
Key Takeaway: Don’t mistake perspiration for inspiration. A collab isn’t guaranteed to be successful simply because it is a collab and it’s hard to execute. It’s interesting to the extent that it excites and evolves the customer.
This starts with picking the right partner to help you execute your concept and then creating new energy from the spark between you.
Key#5: Your Collaboration Must Be Authentic
Choose partners who can positively contribute to your brand, whether through a shared mission, shared values, or a shared customer profile. Your partnership must seem authentic and stimulate a positive response of recognition in your customers.
When you pick a partner that complements your brand, customers will be able to see your brand as part of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This will reinforce your brand identity and strengthen your message.
A Great Example:
Patagonia Provisions X Dogfish Head has a top spot in our Collab Hall of Fame for this very reason. Both Patagonia’s food brand and the Delaware-based brewery share in a commitment to sustainable innovation. This spring, the two teamed up to launch Kernza Pils, a beer that’s good for the planet!
Made from the perennial kernza grain, which draws carbon from the atmosphere, this beer marks a huge step forward in sustainable brewing practices.
…so there you have it
The five keys to great collabs are:
- Design for your customers (not you)
- Set clear, complementary business objectives
- Create a clear message to enthuse customers
- Excite emotions to raise the brand above the everyday
- Work to an authentic strategic plan
Brands grow faster when they grow together. United by a common purpose, with aligned and understood goals and a commitment to create a worthwhile and meaningful new lens on your brands, collabs are the way to cut through the noise, and divide the work while multiplying your returns.
Our industry nomenclature of “Brand x Brand” offers its own clues to why collabs are so powerful. The “x” marks the spot where the two brands become many times more than the sum of their customers’ prior expectations.
To quote writer and marketer Ben Schott;
“When Brand x Brand = !! & ? the $$$’s are sure to follow.”
Don’t believe us? Take your inspiration from Crocs who saw a 12 Million Percentage point increase in brand searches on Amazon and a 64% increase in revenues after their July 2020 Collab with KFC sold out in under an hour. Or Taco Bell/ Doritos who sold over 1bn Collab Tacos in the first year of their partnership.
You literally cannot buy results like these. They have a life of their own.
Now you know how to plan the best kinds of collabs, we can help you get off the sidelines and into the game when you contact us at sales@colaboratory.io today.
