INFLUENCE

'X' Marks the Profit

When historians look back on 2020, they’ll be astounded by the tidal wave of logo collages retailers released this year. Especially when they realize Nike x Supreme x Adidas x Stussy x Bape x Kith x Off-White x The North Face x Chinatown Market x Palace only counted as one.

To Retail Brew’s readers, two offerings stuck out among the many brand names joined by an “x” in 2020. One updated ye olde celebrity brand ambassadorship to new heights; another fused the iconography of two iconic brands with a luxury twist. Let’s take a closer look.

Drive thru drive

McDonald’s barely had to lift a fryer in its first celebrity collaboration since its early 1990s McJordan burger. 

For a fall partnership with rapper Travis Scott, the chain restaurant remixed existing menu items into a $6 Travis Scott meal. The duo also released a line of menu-inspired merch.

• For McDonald’s, the partnership allowed it “to advertise to young people without all the burdens and potential misfires of actually advertising to young people,” the NYT suggested.
• For Scott, scale for his personal brand was the most enticing ingredient. He’s forged all sorts of corporate collab ties—with Nike, with Fortnite, with General Mills—without diminishing his selling power.

This meal satisfied. So much so, ingredients for the bundle sold out at several franchises within eight days of launching. 

• McDonald’s Q3 same-store sales rose 4.6%, exceeding soggy expectations from earlier in the pandemic.
• Scott earned around $20 million total through the partnership, Forbes reported. Only roughly $5 million came from the meal itself; the other $15 million came from the co-branded apparel and McNugget pillows. 

Second servings? Shortly after, McDonald’s released a meal with singer J Balvin. McDonald’s also told investors that more celebrity collaborations were headed to next year’s menus.

Sneakers du jour 

There’s a sneaker collab for every Twitter thinkboi. But Dior x Air Jordan still outpaced them all to become fashion search engine Lyst’s hottest collaboration of 2020. 

What made it possible?

Brand balance: Air Jordan owner Nike wanted to secure its first true luxury partner. Dior wanted to introduce its brand to younger customers with savings to spare. So the two landed on an “Air Dior” design with the luxury brand’s fabric on the Nike swoosh, for a casual $2,000–$2,200. 

Sku scarcity: Luxury isn’t just a matter of price, but a matter of access. So Air Jordan and Dior limited production to 13,000 pairs, with 5,000 pre-designated to Dior’s “top clients.” 

The remaining 8,000 pairs were sold via international online draw—with five million global participants, the brand told WWD.

Looking ahead...Air Jordan and Dior execs haven’t indicated that v2 of the crossover will ever hit shelves. But of the dozens of Air Jordan collabs out there, this one’s worth revisiting: The sneakers are being resold on StockX for as much as 300% more than their sticker price, Lyst reports.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

There isn’t space to recap every single partnership of the past year. But according to the Retail Brew inbox, I couldn’t close 2020 without a shoutout to the brands below. 

• So good, it returned after a ten year hiatus and sold out in minutes: Jil Sander for Uniqlo.
• 8 minutes. That’s all it took for Hodinkee’s tie-in with John Mayer to sell out. 
• Charity met 2020’s drinking trends through Haus’s Restaurant Project.
• Whether with a chart-topping artist or a piece of fried chicken, Crocs delivered multiple collabs shoppers couldn't resist.

FOOTWEAR

Several Critics Are Typing

Cole Haan and Slack unleashed the footwear embodiment of “synergy” to the masses in October. The most charitable review I could find came from The Verge’s Jon Porter, who said, “I actually don’t hate the look of them?”

What went awry? Like so many jokes my editor deletes before you read them, the intentions were good. The $120 sneaker collab was meant to celebrate the work from home force; Cole Haan said its team designed the sneakers remotely, via Slack. 

Still, Cole Haan x Slack missed two pillars of a strong footwear collab:

1. A captive audience. 12 million business professionals use Slack, but the average user likely doesn’t count the company software provider among their work wives. In other words, the communities that use Slack ≠ a Slack community.
2. A compelling design POV. Sneaker collaborations often riff on brand signatures shoppers love. The Slack collab didn’t offer anything extra aside from a printed logo.

Final results: Cole Haan is likely relieved this was a limited time collab. At the time I wrote this, all four styles had finally sold out. But their last listed price was also 50% off. 

SPONSORED BY EMARKETER

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented Amazon ads. eMarketer’s analyst report, Amazon Advertising 2020: Pandemic Trends Push the No. 3 US Digital Ad Seller Forward, shares some of the reasons that Amazon’s ad selling has boomed—even in a pandemic—and how advertisers are approaching Amazon this year. Get the full report here. 

THE YEAR AHEAD

Collab Cal

2021 is days away, and a new slate of crossovers aren't far behind. Here are three to watch when they arrive next year. 

Ugg x Telfar: Telfar took its best-selling bags to Ugg after a collab with Gap fell through. Sneak previews and pre-orders of the warm and fuzzy totes launched this fall; the bags will reach shoppers between March and June.

Ikea x Republic of Gamers: With so many brands launching gaming apparel, you may have missed Ikea’s quiet bid for gamers’ command centers. The first furniture prototypes will land in Ikea China stores in February, then go worldwide later in the year.

Yeezy Gap: The 10 year partnership announcement arrived in June. Shoppers won't bring the hyped-up collection home until a TBA date in H1.

SWAPPING SKUS

Even more collab-oriented articles to round out your holiday reading lists.  

1. Inside Ikea’s “DJ model” of selecting and spinning out partnerships. (The Sociology of Business)
2. Why beauty retail is the epicenter of store-in-store collaboration. (The Fashion Law) 
3. 2020 turned The Grateful Dead into legendary brand collaborators. Here's how. (WSJ)
4. Okay, this is technically from 2019. But it cleared up many of my shower questions about the wild world of collaboration licensing. (High Snobiety)
5. Bypassing the [Brand] x [Brand] formula for something far more creative: several restaurants combining in a joint relief experience. (Mel Magazine)
6. Spot the collabs in this roundup of the 101 biggest business moments of the pandemic. (Marker)
7. When beauty brands wanted collaborators with big personalities, they turned to...cartoon characters? (Glossy)

FRIEND OR FAUX?

Let’s revisit a Retail Brew classic with a special edition spin. I’ll list five collabs; you’ll identify which were released in 2020 and which are 100% fake.

1. Tim Hortons x Bath & Body Works (home fragrance)
2. Pottery Barn x Netflix (home decor)
3. Kith x Lucky Charms (apparel)
4. Forever 21 x 7-Eleven (apparel)
5. KFC x Pizza Hut (meal)

Keep reading for the answers.

FRIEND OR FAUX? ANSWER

Collabs 1 and 2 do not exist. Collabs 3–5 are real.