Brand Collaboration Opportunities

In retail, many chase the next big thing—a new style, a new way to reach consumers—triggering a frantic race to adopt. But most trends fade as fast as they appear. The real game-changers are curated habits that prove they can stand the test of time. I’ve championed social commerce as the future of retail for over a decade. In hindsight, that barely scratches the surface. It’s now a deeply ingrained consumer behavior. The imperative isn’t just to adopt it, but to evolve with it—constantly and intentionally. At HSN, social commerce was core to our strategy. We pioneered the blend of shopping and entertainment. That’s the essence: finding the sweet spot where entertainment, connection, and commerce converge. Soon after, platforms like Twitch began enabling users to both game and shop in real time, blending entertainment with commerce. Fanatics has successfully leaned into this model as well, immersing fans in live experiences while showcasing gear in action, often worn by their favorite athletes and community, turning fandom into a powerful trust signal. More recently, TikTok Shop collapsed the purchase funnel into a single scroll. It's no longer discover, then buy. Now, it’s see it, want it, buy it—seamlessly, in-platform. So, as we look ahead, how do I see this "social commerce habit" evolving? Here's what I expect: 🔹 Creator Integration is Non-Negotiable. For Gen Z, in particular, TikTok Shop has become a primary discovery engine. They trust their favorite creators to genuinely try products and offer honest feedback. The more brands lean into authentic partnerships with creators, the more trust they build in this integrated shopping experience. It’s about relationship-driven commerce. 🔹 Embrace a Zero-Click World. Speed and simplicity are paramount. Consumers need to be able to see, buy, and receive as fast as humanly possible. This means minimal clicks, minimal friction, and no moments for reconsideration. It's about instant gratification and removing all barriers between desire and ownership. 🔹 Elevate Live Shopping. This is a powerful return to the personal connection and real-time interaction that defined the best of traditional retail. Shoppable videos and live sessions transform social media into a personalized shopping aisle. Imagine experts demonstrating products, showing how they fit or can be styled, all in real-time, tailored to your interests. It brings humanity back to digital retail. 🔹 Unlock the Power of Virtual Try-Ons. A longstanding hurdle in e-commerce is "try before you buy." AI-enabled virtual try-on features solves that, making online shopping more immersive and convenient. This translates directly into higher conversion rates, deeper engagement, and customers spending more valuable time interacting with your brand digitally. It’s time to stop treating social commerce like a trend. This is commerce, full stop. It’s a fundamental consumer behavior that belongs at the center of every modern retail strategy.

“Clobberin’ Time”. Marvel Studios isn't just reintroducing the Fantastic Four on screen—they are building a global consumer products campaign. Here’s how Disney is making it happen—and what media and licensing leaders should take away: 🔹 Category Depth That Delivered From $80 Loungefly H.E.R.B.I.E. backpacks to $7.99 Little Caesars four-flavor pizzas, the product line stretched across: ⌙ Toys & Collectibles: Hasbro’s Legends line, LEGO’s first-ever Fantastic Four set, and sell-out Funko Pop!s. ⌙Apparel & Accessories: Retro-inspired exclusives, DIFF eyewear collabs, and Hot Topic’s Her Universe fashion push. ⌙ Home & Office: Posters, planners, and even school supplies rolled out with timing synced to back-to-school and global premiere beats. ⌙ F&B Activations: General Mills cereals, Snapple character bottles, and the “Fantastic Four‑N‑One” pizza turned the IP into part of daily life. 💡 Estimated total global retail sales: $300M+ 💡 Marvel/Disney licensing revenue (projected): $20M+ 🔹 Licensing To Drive Theatrical Lift Cross-promotion isn't just about shelf space—it is to move audiences 💡 Estimated box office uplift from merchandise and tie‑ins: $10–15M 💡 Merchandise revenue per viewer: $4+, outperforming even Black Panther 🔹 Marketing Alliances with Measurable Impact A key driver of theatrical momentum? The Walt Disney Company’s strategic integration of Fantastic Four into its broader brand ecosystem—including a high-visibility partnership with ESPN. 💡 As a result, unaided awareness among male viewers 18–34 jumped double-digita in pre-release tracking. 💡 ESPN integration alone is estimated to have driven ~$6–8M in incremental ticket sales, particularly in key DMAs with overlapping fanbases. This isn't just media spend—it was media synergy. When Marvel fires on all Disney cylinders, the multiplier effect is real. 🔹 Global Sync, Local Nuance Marvel pushed for day‑and‑date merch availability across: ⌙ North America: Massive, omnichannel presence with full promotional stack. ⌙ EMEA: VW electric vehicle promo in UK, Smyths Toys exclusives, EU Funko rollout. ⌙ LATAM: Panini sticker books, influencer unboxings, regional price‑sensitive bundles. ⌙ APAC: Uniqlo Japan shirts, Bandai figure announcements, Disney+ tie‑ins. 🔹 What Licensing Leaders Should Take Away ⌙ Nostalgia Sells, Innovation Sustains: Blending retro art and fresh formats widened the demographic funnel. ⌙ Content + Commerce Integration Wins: Merch wasn’t an afterthought. ⌙ Global Needs Local Strategy: Rolling launches with regional adaptations (i.e. Raksha Bandhan tie‑ins in India) drove relevancy. ⌙ Phase 2 Begins Now: With streaming around the corner, a second merch wave could add another $100M+. 👏 Kudos to the Lylle, Asad, Tony, Yonatan, Luke, and to the teams at Marvel Studios, Disney Experiences, and ESPN CreativeWorks for a fully integrated campaign that’s truly… fantastic. #Media #Disney #BoxOffice #Streaming #Licensing

No potential licensing partner cares as much about your brand as you do. Especially as you look to expand your brand into new markets or product categories. They care about what’s in it for them. A successful #brandlicensing business is built on the value you bring that unlocks #revenues. Value to bring: -> Demonstrate an authentic connection to a defined target audience. -> A #BrandBook that includes a style guide. -> Clear SOPs for production, sales and marketing. -> Proven marketing strategies that can be easily expanded. -> For new countries make sure that your brand can be localized. Are you looking to license your brand to generate additional revenue streams? Make sure you provide a clear path to revenue for your licensing partners by bringing value beyond your brand's "look and feel." Doing all of the above creates the coveted “win-win” scenario. Do you think I missed anything? Let me know in the comments.

Conferences are expensive, boring, and typically have low ROI....but company-led EVENTS on the other hand can be powerful signals. Here's the exact playbook we used at Onward to organize profitable events where prospects can have a great time AND move closer to buying: ➝ 1. Align on your goal. I used to make the mistake of expecting a close within 30 days of an event and would be continually disappointed based on that expectation. Now I consider events another "touch point" in the customer journey/funnel. Our goal is simply to usher the customer to the next stage of the funnel. So if all your leads are top of the funnel, don't expect to close at the event. It's about a) learning what moves the needle for them and b) educating them on our ROI. This will result in moving them to the next sales stage. Your mindset and intentions here are important because otherwise, your pitch will misfire and either come off too brash or too aggressive. ➝ 2. Set the agenda to be what the client would want—not what you want. One of our go-to tactics is mixing education and entertainment. We would create an interactive, immersive learning session w/ a world-class expert with a focus on equipping attendees with tangible takeaways in addition to networking. ➝ 3. Find great partners. In order to share the budget, we typically find like-minded companies that we want to partner with and share customer leads. We participated in Retention.com's marquee summer event in Malibu called Retox and it was one of the more lavish events we've been a part of with over 200+ brands attending. It takes a lot to move the needle for customers to get excited and sometimes you have to go all out! ➝ 4. Yet the simplest format is often the most effective—an intimate, private dinner. You'd be surprised at how much common ground you can find with a potential customer over a 2-hour dinner. Typically there are no pitches, just real connections. The sales pitches will come later—but upfront it's about getting to know one another and seeing how it would be to work together. Sales is about developing relationships and meaningful relationships are built when people can let their guard down and simply connect as human beings. And that's exactly what we aim for. So if you're tired of the same old networking scene and you're craving experiences that truly move the needle, I'd love to connect. What are some unique events you've thrown? I'm always looking for new ideas.

You can tell a trend is transitioning from conversation to tangible reality when companies are restructuring teams based on a new normal in the market. Right now, this is happening at the intersection of affiliate and influencer marketing. We're seeing large, sophisticated companies merge their influencer, affiliate, and sometimes PR teams under a "Partnerships" umbrella to manage all the third-party partners, particularly with an acquisition/performance focus. Creators are slowly but surely taking over in the attention economy, and as a result, they're becoming the "affiliates" of the future. In the past, people looked to large media publishers like Wire Cutter or "Gift Guides" to figure out what to buy. Now, they get inspired to buy by the influencers they follow, oftentimes aligned with a passion or expertise they hold. This shift means brands are now interacting with people instead of large companies, which are totally different stakeholders with totally different priorities. Brand Partnership teams need to know how to appeal to someone whose business is their online persona, not a large, bureaucratic media company. I think this creates a HUGE opportunity for smaller, up-and-coming brands to break through without the systematic inertia and incumbent bias of the past, but you need to know how to build relationships, make those partners feel special, and stand out amongst the crowd. What Lily Comba and the team Superbloom are doing across IRL activations, dinners, and opportunities for creators and brands to connect and learn is most certainly the future. We're in the early innings of this transition, and I'm excited to see how both the influencer and affiliate worlds evolve and adapt to the new normal. One thing I know, we'll be right here building product to help brands win at Superfiliate! Would love to hear thoughts from some folks in the space who have been doing it a lot longer than me Krik D. Angacian Amy Scanlon Marshall Nyman ZeroTo1 🚀 456 Growth Media Sarah Crow Michael McNerney Jolie Jankowitz Ali Appelbaum Marc Rona Matt Frary

Summer used to be for slowdowns. Now? It’s for pop-ups, collabs, and brand crossovers that move fast and hit hard. This season, we’re watching a sharp acceleration of cross-category summer collaborations, not just to sell, but to signal. A few standouts: ☀️ Dôen x Gap The floaty, nostalgic luxury label partners with a mass American staple and the result? Sold out in a day. A second drop just launched, extending to menswear and baby for the first time. It’s not just cute, it’s smart: aspiration meets access. 🌿 Mytheresa x Flamingo Estate The high-end fashion platform teams up with a sensory wellness brand hosting lush summer pop-ups from The Hamptons to Ibiza. It’s experience-first, commerce-secondand it’s working. Meanwhile, we’re seeing strategic brand activations pop up in: — Saint Tropez — Mykonos — Ibiza — And a wave of niche concept stores coming to NYC and LA So why does this matter (especially to the leadership and hiring space)? Because these crossovers require a whole new type of operator: - Leaders who can blend culture with commerce - Marketers who think like curators, not just campaigners - General Managers who can partner across categories and markets - And storytellers who can stretch a brand without snapping it These aren’t traditional partnerships.They’re summer strategies for relevance, discovery, and emotional elasticity. And as consumer expectations shift toward experience + identity, these moves will only accelerate. As someone who spends her days helping global consumer brands find the right leaders to steward collaborations like these, I always ask: → Is your leadership team built to manage this kind of cultural + commercial fusion? → Do they speak both “heritage” and “hype”? → Can they stretch your brand without snapping it? If not, let’s talk. This isn’t the old school “co-branding” playbook. This is brand building for the experience economy. And it’s changing fast. #FMCG #SummerPopUps #ConsumerGoods #Marketing #BrandStrategy #DÔENxGAP #LeadershipTrends #GlobalRetail

Working in partnerships teaches you that strategy looks very different depending on where you’re standing. At American Express, partnerships were all about being selective and strategic. With Amex’s brand reputation, we attracted a steady stream of potential partners. But every opportunity was rigorously evaluated to ensure it aligned with our brand’s high standards and operational scale. Partnerships with major retailers and airlines was about keeping pace and elevating the brand’s value across multiple customer segments. Now contrast that with my time at SumAll, a scrappy startup trying to make a name for itself. The challenge wasn’t filtering through partner interest, it was generating it. I vividly remember the hustle it took to position ourselves as an indispensable partner to industry leaders like Square. Success wasn’t about being a household name, it was about aligning OUR solution to THEIR customers’ needs, like helping small businesses measure the impact of social media on their sales. In both cases, the foundation of partnerships is the same: Deeply understanding your partner’s needs and finding ways to create mutual value. Whether you’re at a global giant or a nimble startup, building partnerships requires adaptability, creativity, and a relentless focus on solving problems for your partner. Start by creating a simple “Partner Value Map.” List your potential partner’s goals and pain points, then align your strengths to how you can help them succeed. This clarity will make your outreach and partnership conversations more compelling and strategic.

When I think about transformative DTC case studies, AsWeMove stands out for challenging every conventional assumption about scaling premium brands. Through close collaboration between Arjun Rastogi, Head of Growth at AsWeMove, and their team, they've demonstrated how premium brands can actually improve performance metrics while deepening their luxury positioning using FERMÀT. Here’s how they did that: 1. Educational Journey Engineering → Developed product education flows highlighting their proprietary innovations → Created comparative guides between collections to drive informed purchase decisions → Built value-proposition-focused experiences that justify premium positioning 2. Format Experimentation Architecture → Tested video shops against advertorial landing pages → Compared 3D-rendered product creative with lifestyle photography → Iteratively refined product presentation hierarchies 3. Product Presentation Optimization → Refined hero product selection through continuous testing → Optimized default color and size variant presentations → Iteratively enhanced product descriptions and image carousels based on performance data In just three months, they launched 19 new funnels that delivered: • 64% reduction in customer acquisition costs • 21% increase in conversion rates • 19.5% lift in RPS I find myself returning to this customer story often because it challenges a fundamental assumption in DTC: that premium brands must sacrifice performance metrics to maintain their luxury positioning. The partnership between AsWeMove and FERMÀT proved that with the right AI-driven merchandising and strategic collaboration, you can architect experiences that deliver both.

From my new Harvard Business Review article, here’s how to create the second of four pillars that innovative organizations need – capability to forge strategic partnerships: You don’t have to contain yourself to your team or the organization when it comes to innovation. Great innovations can come from collaborations with suppliers, customers, universities, startups, or companies using relevant technology in a totally different way. For example, the jeans company Levi Strauss has been collaborating with Google to figure out what “smart” clothing might accomplish for users like truckers. But doing so needs focused and dedicated work. That means you need to find people within the team to do the long-term work of building those relationships, having speculative conversations, and hunting for partner capabilities which may not be immediately apparent. You don’t want to be Yahoo, which declined to engage with an ambitious early-stage company boasting a different business model: Google. What to do instead? Put specialists in strategic technology partnerships on the lookout. Have them work in collaboration with core business teams who can use these partnerships to make innovation happen. For example, many pharma companies have these types of partnership offices near MIT, and it’s an approach that can be replicated by a broad range of industries. Johnson & Johnson’s university collaborations not only facilitate investments and research partnerships, but through JLabs they also provide lab space and support services for promising start-ups without requiring an equity stake. This can give Johnson & Johnson an inside track with the start-up when the timing is ripe. The fruits of the program have been substantial — as of 2023, 840 incubations of companies in this network had yielded more than 290 deals or partnerships with J&J. (Have you used other methods to forge strategic partnerships? Please add them in the comments!)

When it comes to launching a B2B collaboration, it's all about strategy, timing, and connecting with your audience. Here's a sneak peek into some of the steps I take to ensure a smooth, successful launch: 1. Collaborate on Strategy: Align with your partner on goals and messaging. Have them provide examples of ideal or top-performing posts and brainstorm promotional strategies —success is all about working together! 2. Evaluate Your Promotional Channels: Think outside of the box. Social media is just one avenue; also consider email, DMs, and word-of-mouth. Could you feature it in a LinkedIn Article or host a LinkedIn Live event? 3. Personalize Your Messaging: Let different audience segments know what value they would find in your content when you share it. 4. Assign Links & UTM Tags: Optimize your link-in-bio and stories with tracking links so you can measure every click. 5. Prepare Promotional Content: High-quality visuals, engaging captions, and a consistent posting schedule are key. Mix up content with teasers, stories, and behind-the-scenes shots to build a story. 6. Prime Your Audience: Start building excitement early with polls, Q&A posts, and sneak peeks. 7. Post-Launch Engagement: Be prepared to continue the conversation with your audience after you hit send. Taking full advantage of a partnership often goes beyond a single post. 💡Pro Tip: Don’t forget to monitor your analytics to see what’s resonating with your audience in preparation for future collaborations. What else would you add? Let me know in the comments! #b2binfluencers #b2bthoughtleaders #influencermarketing #thoughtleadership #collaboration