I’ll be explaining why brands are tapping unconventional partners for big collabs.
This is an interesting topic for me personally.
I’m actually a fan of partnerships and crossovers alike for the most part.
One of my first experiences of this on a physical branding project would be Nike/Jordan collabs.
It goes on to reveal itself in other projects too in the likes of crossover tv shows and movies alike.
But we’re gonna discuss why these brands get unlikely partners in this case. Here we go!
Why Brands Are Tapping Unconventional Partners For Big Collaborations
Brands tap into collaborating with unconventional partners for big collaborations for huge paydays! There’s several other cases that could be studied to support different winning scenarios that played out from unlikely team ups:
- Tapping into each other’s fanbases
- Gaining credibility and authority in different industries or even markets
- More popularity and attention placed on the platforms they operate out of
Huge Paydays That Stem From Collabs
There’s been spectacled events that’s happened all over the world and would be headlined with being a Mega Event.
We could reference a few notable matchups:
- Paul vs. Tyson
- Alvarez vs. Crawford
- Mayweather vs. McGregor
The list goes on. These are all examples of fights that earned well over $100 million dollars in total.
Some of them were fighters stepping into another territory. It could be flipped too. It doesn’t stop there though.
There’s even been collaborations that’s happened in the likes of fast food restaurant chains and even video games like Fortnite!
It’s a unique moment that’s continually being captured and proves to get society talking.
Tapping into another brand’s fanbase
Brands of all kinds are tapping into unconventional collaborations because they also provide an opportunity of getting exposed to new fan bases. It’s cross exposing in totality. We could be talking about 2 separate household names that you wouldn’t think would have any business together— fanbases that are totally different, but that’s exactly the point! If both parties are keeping a growth mindset and looking to expand their reach, it absolutely will work in the favor of both to do a collab. The challenge is keeping egos in check and meet each other with a level of respect that pleases both parties. The benefits could be great though because you could be getting exposed to a whole new world through just being a charismatic person that charms another person of high value well.
Gaining credibility and authority in different industries or even markets
The unconventional collaborations continue too because of another benefit in gaining authority in different markets.
Similar to that example mentioned earlier — you might find people that don’t have any experience whatsoever in another industry, but they’re brought into another world when choosing to collab with another person of high value.
https://youtu.be/6M-ruH_s1Mg?si=tDUbgRUh-6bBG0W3
As you can see, sometimes it’s individuals that choose to work with another company they don’t have any experience with in their technology personally. They prove themself to some effect to where they’re even considered though. It’s not talked about enough, but when this happens, their word becomes even more valid when endorsing products or services from another industry because of their collab they’ve done with another unrelated company and their industry.
More popularity and attention placed on the platforms they operate out of
The effects of this unlikely collab discussion only compounds when you consider the matchups that happened as a result. Again, the fights that happened would be matchups that were unlikely, but even if you go with leagues that were looking to expand their reach, we could even look at the NFL. One of the surprising collabs that caught my attention was the Netflix deal. That could easily be seen as a deal to help boost the notoriety of an already established movie mogul in Netflix. It could be added to their deal with Amazon Prime too which was actually split up with the NBA too. The point in it all is, you might have these unexpected collabs get hosted on unlikely platforms that you wouldn’t expect to get the rights to its viewing—sometimes the collab works best for the platform.
Final thoughts
These are the reasons why brands will do unlikely collaborations again:
- Huge payoffs
- Tapping into each other’s fanbases
- Gaining credibility and authority in different industries or even markets
- More popularity and attention placed on the platforms they operate out of