Kooky Kollabs
From the Simpsons on a catwalk to Rick Astley singing Smiths songs, we reflect on some of the wilder brand collaborations of recent times that have packed a PR punch.
"The aim of the poet is to inform or delight,” said the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, better known as ‘Horace’. And informing and delighting has traditionally been the role of the media too, from print media to broadcasting. But, as far as advertising goes, it’s that element of ‘delight’ – that is, the surprising or unexpected aspect – that jolts consumers out of complacency and keeps them hooked.
It’s exactly that kind of thinking behind a torrent of playful, eye-catching and often downright kooky brand collaborations recently, from influencer campaigns to high-street retailer hook-ups and pop-culture pair-ups (Rick Astley covering Smiths songs, anyone?), a sure-fire way of grabbing the attention and shifting units.
Could this be the new mash-up to end all collaborations?
“Kill all inferior collabs” read GQ’s provocative headline last September, after Fendi and Versace teamed up to become (what else) ‘Fendace’. “Could this be the new mash-up to end all collaborations?” asked the magazine, breathlessly reporting that this “high-octane, co-ed mash-up of both brands’ distinctive house codes” was launched at a much-anticipated secret salon-style show within the courtyard of Versace's Via Gesu headquarters in Milan.
Meanwhile, during October’s Paris Fashion Week, the likes of Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber and Anna Wintour were greeted by a special 10-minute episode of The Simpsons, in which Springfield’s finest ended up on the Balenciaga catwalk. Well, perhaps these momentous, chaotic times inspire similarly surreal marriages.
Magazine editor and lifestyle journalist Flic Everett has long known the value of the unexpected, or novelty: “I think they are of huge value to brands themselves because they double the potential audience and bring the brand to a new demographic who may not previously have registered the name,” she says. “They also bring value to readers and consumers, most often through images that challenge their usual expectations: the Fendace catwalk and accompanying celebrity guest list captured endless column inches, far more than a single show for either would have attracted.”
fashion has been slow on the uptake with digital and immersive technologies… the pandemic forced the industry’s hand.
Not content with turning Marge and Homer into fashion icons, Balenciaga also infiltrated the gaming world, showcasing their Fall 2021 collection via Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow. And they’re far from the only players partnering with the digital realm – in which Stateside, at least, women account for 41 percent of all gamers. Marc Jacobs, Valentino, Vuitton and Burberry are just a few of the brands that have partnered with video games – the latter dressed the most famous character in Honour of Kings, China’s most played video game. As Wired reported, if “fashion has been slow on the uptake with digital and immersive technologies… the pandemic forced the industry’s hand”, with fashion houses seeking alternative ways of reaching shoppers when the stores were closed.
Says Everett, “Collaborations mean the brands are creating a ‘world’ which offers a single-branded lifestyle vision and covers much more ground than a single name can generally manage. This includes celebrities who are always keen to maximise their connection with the new and cool.”
Some are even plastic. Balmain has partnered with style icon Barbie for a special limited-edition collection which includes dresses, tees, hoodies and bags. Pink dominates Balmain x Barbie (of course) but not just the doll’s signature bubblegum shade; Olivier Rousteing, creative director at the French luxury fashion house, has designed the collection’s palette to evolve from the softest blushes to a host of stronger tones. Perfect for every human wannabe.
In his book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, Nir Eyal describes the “powerful cognitive quirk” observed by the American psychologist, behaviourist and social philosopher B.F. Skinner in the 1950s, which he called “intermittent reinforcement”. Skinner discovered that lab mice responded “most voraciously to random rewards… the mice would press a lever and sometimes they’d get a small treat, other times a large treat, and other times nothing at all. Unlike the mice that received the same treat every time, the mice that received variable rewards seemed to press the lever compulsively.”
A classic example of where all roads lead to dopamine. In their book Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected, authors Tania Luna and Leeann Renninger argue that “surprise, whether good or bad, is important for bringing vitality to our lives.” Surprise “works on the dopamine system in our brains, helping us to refocus our attention and inspiring us to look at our situation in new ways.”
Luna and Renninger also outline a typical four-stage response to surprise. The first is freeze – we’re stopped in our tracks because of the unexpected. Next is find – we get hooked into trying to understand what’s going on. Third is shift – we begin to shift our perspectives, based on conflicting findings. And finally share – we feel the pull to share our surprises with others. A marketer’s dream formula, then.
Novelty, says Everett, “stops brands getting ‘tired’ or siloed in a stagnant demographic.” And as Eyal blogs, “Companies are learning to master new tactics to stay relevant in users’ minds and lives,” via what he calls the “Hook Model”. Part of the model is a “Variable Reward… what separates Hooks from a plain vanilla feedback loop”. According to Eyal, it’s a way of creating unpredictability or variability: “And voilà, intrigue is created. You’ll be opening that door like a lab animal in a Skinner box.”
But our favourite recent collab (and favourite tagline) belongs to RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars Champion, Shea Couleé, who in late May 2021 partnered with Goose Island Brewery to create the limited edition Shea Coul-Alé: Royal Edition. Described as “a flavorful, fierce, tropical wheat ale that’s dramatically bursting with pineapple, followed by hints of orange zest,” the packaging came complete with a pimped-up Goose logo, sporting long eyelashes a crown, and the tagline “She’s here, she’s queer – and this is her year.”
