Partnerships vs Collaborations
The high, pointy-end of the fashion industry has faced all sorts of challenges over its tumultuous history, however when Italian fashion house Missoni released a collaboration with Target in 2011 the industry was shaken and forever shifted.
Why had a luxury brand reached into large scale retail of middle America? As matriarch Angela Missoni recalled “We discovered there was a whole audience out there that responded to the Missoni world on an emotional level, many without knowledge of us as a luxury brand. I remember reading all the news reports about the response being so strong that the Target website crashed, and hearing the same from all my U.S. friends! It was a real discovery for us.”
Paving the way for hundreds of subsequent brand collaborations, these early successes illustrated strengths and benefits brands continue to tap into. First, however, we need to make the clear distinction between brand collaborations and partnerships. The latter we are firmly in favour.
Brand collaborations involve the creation of a new product or service with clear inputs of each brand with a bespoke, often limited edition output. Despite plenty of great examples (Cheetos x Forever 21, Uber & Spotify) we also have plenty of fails which either made no sense or was a lopsided win-loss relationship (U2 & Apple iPod). Majority are more PR than product substance, social click bait and short lived hype. Considering brands spend so much time, money and effort in managing brand consistency, the majority of brand collaborations fail to deliver any sustainable benefits and brand building. Most should probably be termed co-brand, rather than collaboration.
Meanwhile, brand partnerships involve two brands aligning for the sake of connecting with their respective brand fans and sharing campaigns and communications targeted to their direct audiences.
We recently connected an evolving partnership between Weber BBQs & BIG4 Holiday Parks. The beauty of this partnership is the array of executions each brand is using to connect with and cross-promote to their respective audiences. From content to retail promotions, to user generated content engagement and even internal incentives programs. The nature of this partnership is a genuine two-way, win-win relationship.
What should a good partnership deliver?
Mutually beneficial relationships that fit with target audiences
Increased brand awareness, reach, engagement and new customer data capture
Cross-category, promotion and brand activations
Cost-effective and timely content creation and execution of the partnership
Who else has done it well?
Check out Starbucks & Spotify, Uber & Dettol, Airbnb & Flipboard for big scale examples, through to recent brand partnerships Deliveroo & Winnings Moves Board Games, plus Seek & Spotify here in Australia.
Team Contributor: David Gough
Get in touch: david.gough@arrowvane.com | Linkedin
Subscribe to The Quiver newsletter here