Odd collabs and brand partnerships that actually worked

No matter your business, you want to stand out on your own, you want to be the best at what you do in a sea of competition.

But sometimes working together, especially cross-industry, creating the most unlikely of partnerships helps to inject fun into your campaigns and extend your reach to new audiences.

Monzo x Greggs

The bank and bakery recently teamed up and created a sausage roll ‘ATMmm’ in Newcastle, providing passers-by with free sausage rolls from what looked like an ATM. The fun collaboration went viral and helped launch a new partnership for the two businesses, Monzo Perks subscribers can get a weekly treat from Greggs.

Primark x Greggs

No stranger to an outlandish and viral-worthy collab, Greggs previously teamed up with Primark to make a range of clothes sporting the Greggs logos, offering some free advertising for the bakery as people go about their day.

Pokémon x Van Gough Museum

One of the most unlikely collaborations is that of Dutch post-impressionist painter Van Gough and Japanese pop culture, Pokémon. For the 50^th anniversary of the Van Gough Museum in Amsterdam, the creative team aimed to attract a younger audience by hanging Van Gough-style portraits of popular Pokémon around the gallery. The portraits were made by Japanese artists who design Pokémon cards.  The museum also had activities that encouraged visitors to draw their own Pokémon as well as treasure hunts.

Crocs x KFC/Cars/Levis

Crocs love a collaboration. The large rubber shoes are a piece of PR genius in themselves. They shot to fame – and out of the realm of garden shoes – by pairing up with celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Luke Combs, and Post Malone and dominating social media and TikTok. Since then, they have collaborated with everyone from Disney Pixar’s Cars to make-up brand Benefit to the clothing label Museum of Peace and Quiet’, releasing limited editions of the shoes.

The most unusual pairings come with the fast-food chain KFC; the resulting Crocs look like giant pieces of fried chicken. According to Crocs’ website, ‘each pair of co-branded footwear comes with two Jibbitz™ charms made to resemble and smell like fried chicken,’ they even have to state that the decorative chicken charms, designed to fit in the holes in the Crocs, are not for human consumption.

Now we’ve really seen it all.

Read our next blog on: The difference between press releases and articles (bclear.co.uk)