What we can learn about brand collabs from Kanye West / Adidas
If you’ve been here for a while, you know that your brand voice should always be among your top priorities. Your authenticity and passion about whatever it is you do is what makes your brand special– and will be what keeps people coming back. Sometimes, though, you need to get creative to bring those people in in the first place.
There are a million ways to do it, but one of the best is collaboration. Partnering with other brands and voices can be a major unlock to audience growth, not to mention it can help you build relationships that will serve you for years to come. They’re also budget-friendly - according to Collabosaurus, they're up to 25x less expensive than digital advertising.
As with anything, unfortunately, there can be downsides between collaborators. That’s never been more apparent as when the world watched the dissolution of Kanye West’s business relationship with Adidas after the rapper made a series of antisemitic comments.
Don’t worry, we don’t spend too long talking about Ye. It’s worth bringing him up because, of the many lessons that came out of that mess, there are two big ones for digital strategy that we should all be keeping in mind:
Brands must be strong enough on their own before working with external partners
Shared values and vision are the top requirements for a collaboration
Building a strong brand
This collab breakup had a massive impact: Adidas disclosed that lost sales from the Yeezy line could be as high as $247 million - and that’s just for the rest of 2022. It’s been reported that Yeezy generated an estimated $2 billion a year for the company, close to 10 percent of the annual revenue.
That loss is a tough pill to swallow, and probably why it took days for Adidas to finally cut ties (although there are more questions than answers as to why, for the duration of the partnership, it tolerated all of Ye’s past behavior).
Here’s the thing: Adidas will be fine.
Yes, it will take some time for the company to recoup those losses, particularly since this all went down right before the holiday season. But the bounce-back has already begun, with announcements about a Yeezy re-brand and a new CEO.
Adidas is a strong brand on its own, and although much of its current identity is wrapped up in controversy, its long history and name recognition are likely to carry it to the other side. To do that, company leadership must look inward.
“The whole premise of working with him was to really attract a younger customer,” Angeli Gianchandani, a global brand strategist, explained to Yahoo Finance Live. “If they have a gap in their portfolio, they need to think long-term and they need to look at a strategy that will be beneficial, not rely on a personality or a celebrity…they’ll really need to think about how they reinvent their in-house design team.”
You are your brand’s best asset. Before you jump into your next collaboration, check in and make sure your foundation is strong. That is what will convince your new audience to stick around. Here are a few stories from the M.T. Deco archives to help keep you on track:
Identifying the right partners
Having that strong foundation is what will help you evaluate what collaborations are best for you, because when it comes to your brand, protecting it is part of nurturing it. That means that every collab that comes your way won’t necessarily be the right fit - and that’s okay. In fact, saying no can oftentimes mean you know what you’re doing.
What the Yeezy mess highlights is the importance of shared values. This can be hard to predict, so it means a partner content deep-dive, frank conversations and, possibly, a DocuSign with legalese that protects both parties. Later.com has a great step-by-step blog on brand collaborations, which includes an overview of what should be in your contract, like usage rights and payment terms.
Finding common ground with your collaborator will help in identifying whether it’s a match. We love this suggestion from Create & Cultivate: “One of the best ways to know whether a potential partner is the right fit is to make sure you share a similar mission (why you do what you do), vibe (how you communicate what you do), and audience (who you do it for). When those three things are aligned, it’s much more likely that a collaboration will be well-received by both of your communities.”
Bonus: M.T. Deco founder Melissa Blum recently talked about how to be strategic when taking on new clients, and a lot of her tips can also apply to collaborations.
The bottom line: There are so many wonderful aspects of collaborating with brands and influencers, that should only be part of your overall strategy. Think about collaborations as an accessory for growth, not the main driver. There is serious power in uniting voices, but at the end of the day, your brand is what you control.