Brands team up all the time through strategic brand partnerships to take their message further than they ever could alone. While their mileage may vary, these partnerships can have real value.
Brand collaborations and partnerships extend across various mediums, offering unique ways to engage audiences and enhance brand visibility. On social media, brand collaborations often involve influencers or other brands to co-create content, from sponsored posts to branded hashtags and challenges. Through platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, brands can leverage influencers’ followings to reach specific demographics with authentic, relatable content. For example, a fitness brand might partner with a popular wellness influencer to showcase workout gear, blending the product seamlessly into content their audience already values. Social media collaborations also allow for interactive engagement, where audiences can comment, share, and participate, creating a dynamic form of brand interaction.
TV commercials and magazine ads offer brands a more traditional yet impactful form of collaboration. In commercials, brands might partner with celebrities, sports figures, or other brands to enhance their appeal and connect with a broader audience. Magazine ads also offer opportunities for partnerships and collaboration, particularly in niches like fashion, beauty, and luxury goods. Thoughtful, strategic marketing plays a crucial role in enhancing these brand partnerships and collaborations. Here are a handful of our favorite brand crossovers from recent memory.
Birchbox, Mad Men & Rifle Paper Company
Birchbox is a beauty and grooming subscription box service that delivers monthly curated sample-sized products to subscribers. This allows customers to discover new brands and products tailored to their preferences. Birchbox primarily uses digital marketing channels such as social media, email marketing, and influencer partnerships to reach a broad audience and maintain engagement. With a strong focus on personalization and customer experience, Birchbox has become a well-recognized brand in the beauty sector, appealing to consumers looking to explore new products without committing to full-sized purchases. While primarily known as a subscription box for women, they also launched Birchbox Men to let guys in on the fun. To commemorate the start of Mad Men’s final season, Birchbox collaborated with AMC with a brand partnership to create a limited edition Mad Men-themed box for each. For anyone who’s not a fan of Mad Men – or anyone who’s just in love with beautiful floral patterns – Birchbox also collaborated with Anna Bond, founder of Rifle Paper Company, to bring the two brands together in a box designed for their April theme, “Fresh For Spring.”
Lily Pulitzer for Target
Lilly Pulitzer is an American fashion brand known for its bright, colorful prints and resort-style clothing embodying a vibrant, tropical aesthetic. The brand is especially popular for its signature shift dresses, tunics, and swimwear, making it a go-to choice for beachwear and summer fashion.
However, Lilly Pulitzer is generally considered a premium or moderately high-end brand, with prices that reflect its quality and unique, hand-drawn prints. To that end, the arrival of Lily Pulitzer for Target was a little bit like a mini-Black Friday frenzy. People lined up on launch day as early as 5 AM in some places, and after opening, the items sold out within minutes. Unfortunately for the people who missed out on launch day, Target probably won’t restock them anytime soon, if ever. A lot of customers went home angry and empty-handed, showing the downside of introducing a brand that everyone wants a piece of in such limited quantities. But if Target’s goal was solely to get eyes on their own brand and increase their brand exposure, enticing shoppers to rush through their doors, there’s no doubting their success.
Bank of America & Khan Academy: Better Money Habits
When Sal Khan first started Khan Academy – an educational platform offering free courses in a wide range of subjects, including math, science, economics, and humanities, aimed at students of all ages – he felt a responsibility to teach others the way he wishes he had been taught growing up, by distilling the principles behind dozens of subjects into easy-to-understand, visually-annotated video lessons that help students learn to ask the right questions in any situation. Now, he’s collaborating with Bank of America, one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S., to bring the same kind of approach to financial education. Better Money Habits gives adults who want to make more informed decisions about their money practical examples that are easy to understand, fostering customer loyalty through strategic brand partnerships.
Audi & The Avengers: Striking
“Striking” is the theme of Audi’s latest commercial featuring The Avengers. Between the striking good looks of the cast, and Thor and Hulk striking everything in sight with their respective superpowers, Audi is making the most of the wordplay. Featuring models like the Audi R8 and Audi e-tron, these cars showcased cutting-edge technology and futuristic aesthetics, complementing the high-tech world of the Avengers. The sleek, powerful vehicles highlighted Audi’s brand identity as innovative and luxurious while aligning with the Marvel characters’ prowess and sophistication, striking a natural synergy between the two brands. On the web, Audi and Marvel are capitalizing on Iron Man’s cool factor to promote The Evolution of Tony Stark’s Awesome Audi Cars, which he drove in the first Avengers movie and all of the Iron Man films that came before it.
LEGO & Literally Everyone
In the mid-2000s, LEGO struggled with the problem of giving its designers too much creative freedom, spawning a mess of overly complicated products and a failed cartoon starring LEGO characters that were too confusing for kids to even play with.
In the incredible turnaround that followed, brand collaborations became a massive part of LEGO’s business, creating a new way for kids to invite their favorite characters from other franchises into the worlds they imagine.
You may have heard of some of them: LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Avengers, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Lord of the Rings, LEGO Batman, LEGO Indiana Jones, and LEGO Ninja Turtles. LEGO even collaborated with NASA to create models, like the LEGO model of the Curiosity Rover they sent to Mars in 2012.
Brand crossovers can be a cornerstone of many inbound marketing plans by providing fresh and unexpected content for social media efforts. They bring fresh associations to a brand attribute, reinforcing messages by adding creative and dramatic context. Brand collaboration can have exponential effects for both startups and household names, provided the chemistry is right, significantly enhancing brand recognition.
Here at Adrenaline, we help financial institutions with their branding and marketing – positioning, designing, building, and implementing change so they can grow their brand recognition. We know that powerful brands need powerful marketing and award-winning campaigns. When a financial institution is looking at brand partnerships or collaborations, we’re here to help as part of a broader campaign to help them break through the competition.
Want to learn more about how to improve your brand recognition through branding best practices? Get in touch with the brand experience experts at Adrenaline.
Adrenaline is an end-to-end brand experience company serving the financial industry. We move brands and businesses ahead by delivering on every aspect of their experience across digital and physical channels, from strategy through implementation. Our multi-disciplinary team works with leadership to advise on purpose, position, culture, and retail growth strategies. We create brands people love and engage audiences from employees to customers with story-led design and insights-driven marketing; and we design and build transformative brand experiences across branch networks, leading the construction and implementation of physical spaces that drive business advantage and make the brand experience real.
