Collaboration over competition: Why brands are joining forces to grow their audiences

Miami Herald

2 days ago

Collaboration over competition: Why brands are joining forces to grow their audiences
In February 2023, Thomas Neuberger, cofounder of P.F. Candle, and Dani Noguera, founder of outdoor apparel brand Grin27, happened to meet on a bike ride, as they were both in the Los Angeles cycling community. Neither was fully aware of what the other did. Mid-conversation, it came out that the former was, in fact, the owner of P.F., while the latter religiously burned P.F. candles before each bike ride.
The result? Morning Star wood incense, a collaboration between the two brands inspired by damp, fresh California forest mornings. "We are definitely very true to life with our scents, so people who are outdoorsy and like to hike and camp are attracted to our products," says P.F. Candle cofounder Kristen Pumphrey. To further appeal to Grin27's audience of dedicated cyclists, the two brands described the incense as rejuvenative, ideally used to signal time dedicated to physical therapy, maintenance, and injury prevention. The limited-edition drop of 250 units sold out in just 18 days.
"So many of our partnerships happen organically," says Pumphrey, whose other collaborations include Peanuts, skateboard brand Toy Machine, and the upcoming Sempervirens Fund's 125th anniversary.
Brand collaborations foster inclusion, innovation, and a response to cultural shifts. They enhance the relevance of all parties involved and connect them to new audiences. More practically, brand collaborations can be far less expensive than acquiring new audiences via paid marketing channels.
A successful partnership allows brands to break out of their respective category and tap into new spaces while staying true to their value propositions. Shopify talked with Kristen Pumphrey, Becca Millstein of Fishwife, and Jing Gao of Fly By Jing to break down the anatomy of a brand collab.
Identify your goals
Knowing what you want to get out of a collaboration lays the foundation for a successful partnership. For many brands, exposure to new markets is key. "The ultimate goal for a partnership is getting your brand in front of a whole audience that most likely hasn't heard of you or at least hasn't tried your products, but is going to now," says Amrit Richmond, founder of the Indie CPG newsletter community and the consultancy Supermercato.
This was certainly the case with the Fishwife x Fly By Jing collab. "We are completely focused on tinned fish products, on moving the tinned fish movement forward, on making it a staple in every cupboard, and on educating our customer base about the limitless use cases of tinned fish," says Becca Millstein, CEO and cofounder of Fishwife. "We can use brand collabs, like ours with Fly By Jing, to drive home certain use cases-tinned fish in Chinese cuisine, in rice bowls, and noodles-and recruit new customers from their community."
For independent brands in the consumer packaged goods and lifestyle space, in particular, collaborations remain a fertile ground for experimentation without fully committing to entirely new product categories in the original lineup. They also present a cost-effective option for customer acquisition.
"Having two brands of somewhat similar size share a collaboration on their Instagram-that maximum exposure is really, really valuable, especially right now, where everyone is trying to cut their expenses," says Richmond.
Find opportunities that align with your brand
Next is the exploratory phase: identifying potential partners based on your goals and brand mission. "At the end of the prior year, we map out the following year's marketing calendar, including key themes we want to emphasize quarterly and monthly," explains Millstein, who has collaborated with Fly By Jing, Lisa Says Gah, Graza, Bon Iver, and more.
"Concurrently, the marketing team makes a huge list of potential collabs that we believe have the potential to reinforce those themes, orders them by preference, and starts reaching out to see what we can turn up. Then we decide who will be taking on what responsibility in the collaboration, what it will look like, and then we get to planning and executing."
The Fly By Jing team starts by setting criteria for its collaborators. "We seek out partners that are brand-aligned, have really loyal followings, and a similar dedication to storytelling," says Jing Gao, the company's CEO and founder. "Our collabs with Fishwife, Irvins, and Daily Crunch were not just about co-branding, it was about creating custom products that merge our respective culinary expertise in new and unexpected ways." Despite the sheer quantity of product launches, Gao also observes that the CPG world is pretty tight-knit. "Many of Fly By Jing's collaboration partners are my personal friends who also share my love of making great products and challenging what's possible in the CPG space."
For P.F. Candle, when collaborations don't happen spontaneously, as they did with Grin27, potential partners often slide in the account's DMs, and so Pumphrey and Neuberger keep a waiting list of brands who want custom scents. "We only have capacity for so much. We really only take on two collaborative projects a year," says Pumphrey. "So we have to be quite strategic and thoughtful about the partners we're choosing. Collaboratively, we try to do one smaller project that's very brand-building and feels like a friend-of-the-brand type of thing, and one bigger one that's really good for reach."
Put it in writing
"A collaboration is like a mullet," says Pumphrey. "It's business in the front, party in the back."
You get the business done first. "You've got to get the contract in, and you've got to work out the terms. Get it in writing," she elaborates. "There is no way around the tedium of going through a contract line by line, and if it's a big contract, you have to send it out to an attorney to make sure everything's good." Contracts should outline both production commitments, i.e., the number of units to be produced; and marketing commitments, i.e., creative assets, social posts, emails, and ad spend.
If you're licensing a large brand's intellectual property for a collaboration, make sure you understand the licensing costs upfront.
P.F. Candle had a successful collaboration with Peanuts in the summer of 2024. With an initial run of 15,000 pieces, this venture did extend its reach, but it also taught them a lesson. The brand's initial plan for pricing and product quantities was based on historical sales data and didn't account for the full cost of licensing. "From an operational perspective, that was a learning curve because we went into it thinking, 'How many units can we sell?" not thinking, 'How much is that gonna cost us on a licensing deal?' So we got the bill for the licensing. We said, 'Oh my God, that doesn't fit in the budget, that's gonna blow the budget,'" Pumphrey explains on Shopify Masters.
The team adapted, and the collaboration was a success-but they've since adjusted their approach, reverse-engineering pricing and supply with the costs of licensing baked in. "You have to account for that added cost-either by increasing the product's price or by pre-budgeting for the licensing fee," says Pumphrey. "A big learning curve from the licensing perspective is getting the contract locked down before moving into prototyping and production. You don't want to finish the contract at the last minute and then discover you need changes once you've already ordered materials. As an independently owned business, that can be a significant loss."
To find available intellectual property from big brands, consider attending the Licensing Expo in Vegas. "It's a whole thing," Pumphrey says. "If that's the route you want to go down, the Licensing Expo is a good place, because you can see everybody who's licensing their IP and decide what you would want to do."
Launch with a tailored campaign
With the business settled, it's time for the party: Creatively, each collaboration should expand the brand's lore and universe. "We like to create a little world around every launch, especially around every tinned fish launch," says Millstein, specifying that key elements of every launch include photo and video, press outreach, social content, and influencer seeding campaign, and packaging and marketing design.
"The entire marketing team comes together to build all of these elements to ensure the world feels robust, tangible, easy to understand, and exciting."
Specifically, in the case of the partnership between Fly By Jing and Fishwife, their Smoked Salmon with Sweet and Spicy Zhong has a branding that combines the styles of the two brands: the former's color palette and the latter's signature illustrations by Danny "Danbo" Miller. This gives both participants' audiences something familiar and something unexpected to get excited about.
This story was produced by Shopify and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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