Why the Secret to Modern Marketing is Brand Collaboration

Today, your brand is the average of the other brands it’s most associated with.

As a business leader, entrepreneur, marketer, artist or creator of any kind, this new reality presents you with two distinct options:

1. Leave it up to people, aka consumers, to label and categorize you as they see fit (assuming they become aware of you at all)
2. Proactively align with other brands in an effort strategically shape the way your brand is perceived

Look around and I’m sure you’ll begin to notice brand collaborations in your daily life. Perhaps you have a bag of Doritos x Taco Bell chips in your cabinet? Maybe a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Late Night Snack or Cherry Garcia in your freezer? A Disney x Dooney and Bourke bag in your closet? The new Sonos speaker on your countertop with Amazon Alexa built in? Or perhaps Beats by Dre wireless headphones (now owned by Apple) and a SoulCycle x lululemon tee in your gym bag? These are just a few mainstream examples, but brand collaborations can also be more nuanced, situational or contextual, especially as our world becomes increasingly connected by technology.

After paying close attention to this subset of marketing for many years and building my own library of examples across various industries, I realized that brand collaborations were more than a trend. That’s when I decided to formally study the concept and write my new book: Collaboration is King: How Game-Changers Create Marketing Partnerships That Build Brands and Grow Businesses.

In the end, my hypothesis proved even more urgent than I expected, and I’m now convinced that collaborations must be a priority for every brand.

When there’s fit (shared values, goals, and target audiences), brand collaborations not only shape perception, expand awareness, and excite existing believers - they give everyone something to talk about. And in today’s media world, if you’re not being talked about, you’re irrelevant.

Next Level Collaborations

Collaborations that focus on marketing and promotion are extremely effective and worth pursuing, but pushing further and using partnerships to drive product innovation can be even more rewarding. This is because the new product, service, experience, or content you create with a partner - or a series of partners - is truly unique. Swap out any brand in a collaboration and the entire effort becomes something different. This sounds simple, but that’s what makes it so powerful. It’s hard to stand out and do something new, but brand collaborations can help you deliver on all of the above.

Hiding in Plain Sight

It’s likely that your brand already engages in a number of collaborations that are not currently promoted as such. Now is the time to rethink that approach. In addition to seeking out new brand partners, audit the brands already in your orbit, from suppliers to retailers to non-profits and everything in between. Are they all a good fit? Do they reinforce your values and goals? While there may be some partnerships you need to reconsider, I bet there’s at least one brand collaboration hanging in the background that's just waiting for the spotlight.

Ready to Play?

If you’re already in the collaboration game and it’s working for your brand, consider doubling down. The landscape is ripe for partnerships that truly fit.  

If it’s not working for you, carefully evaluate why and rethink everything from your partners to the way you’re collectively activating collaborations.

If you’ve been on the sideline, now is the time to take your shot. Carefully think through your goals, values and audiences, and audit you existing partners as described above. If that doesn’t turn up anything exciting, seek out a handful of new partners. Next, schedule a few jam sessions to bounce ideas and test chemistry. Then, once you’ve identified a partner who fits, get to work creating something that will add value for your collective target audience.

Remember, you don’t need to go big out of the gate, especially if you're new to the collaboration game or if you anticipate internal push-back. Instead, start small and try to get a win under your belt. For this approach, it may be helpful to apply the test-and-learn framework championed by many in the tech world. In other words, think minimum viable collaboration (MVC). There are endless ways to bring a partnership to life, so the best thing to do is to begin experimenting.

Is there a particular collaboration that you've admired and we can all learn from? Please share your favorite examples and any other feedback in the comments below.

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If you're interested in the history and future of brand collaborations, or if you would like to dive deeper into the process of creating a collaboration strategy for your brand, all formats of the book Collaboration is King - including hardcover, paperback, Kindle and audiobook - are available now. Find your copy, and download a Collaboration Playbook to help guide your efforts, here.

Special thanks to Kenny Pappaconstantinou at Elephant Audiobooks for being such a thoughtful and helpful producer.

If you'd like to hear more about the process of creating the audiobook, and listen to an excerpt featuring a story about a unique B2B collaboration I observed at the Natural Products Expo, check out this episode of my audio blog on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RadioPublic.