Breaking The Circle Of Luxury Goods, An Important Marketing Method Of Cross-Border Co Branding

Cross border co branding has become one of the important marketing methods of luxury brands.

On May 17, Xicha announced the launch of the co branded product "Joy Yellow" with the luxury brand FENDI. It won the "FENDI Joy Yellow" for 19 yuan and a full set of coasters, badges and handbags for 38 yuan. As soon as the news came out, the offline stores of Xicha had a long queue for several days. The online applet once appeared a "busy visit" reminder due to the excessive number of visitors. Some stores showed that they were queuing up for nearly 300 cups and waiting for more than 100 minutes ahead.

In addition to the lively cross-border co branding, two different voices appeared on the social platform. Some people exclaimed that it was a "* * *", while others commented that it was a "failure"; Some people thanked Xi Cha for sending a life * * set of FENDI, while others planned to abandon the FENDI that "lowered its status". It seems that once luxury brands are hooked up with affordable brands, joy sharing and bad singing questions also follow.

Similar to the plot of "FENDI Joy Yellow", last June, the top luxury beauty HR Helena and Manner Coffee jointly launched the "One Cup of Green Return" theme activity, and launched co branded drinks and benefits, including free drinks, consumer drinks to receive skin care samples, and skin care products to receive samples with small red book punch notes, which ignited the enthusiasm of social media, but also was questioned.

In recent years, the situation of co branding new consumer brands is not new, such as the coffee flash shop co branded by Prada and Jiya Coffee, LV x LEGO holiday series "packaging" launched by LV, Manner's "LV show customized" coffee, but the highlight era of co branding is far from coming.

High luxury brands prefer to be co branded with front-line sports brands, trendy brands and designer brands, such as Tiffany&Co. and Nike, Gucci and The North Face, or cultural and artistic co branding based on popular films and TV, niche animation, and fashion IP.

Luxury brand x sports/trend brand

As luxury brands have entered the sneaker market in succession, the cooperation between luxury and sports brands has become normal, and the boundary between sports and fashion has been further broken. The partners have also extended from sports brand giants such as Nike and adidas to modern brands such as New Balance, Salomon, On Run and The North Face, Both sides try to attract more young consumers with innovative ideas.

　　Dior × Jordan Brand

In 2020, Dior joined hands with Jordan Brand to launch the joint brand Dior x Air Jordan 1 High/Low for the first time. 13000 pairs were sold worldwide in limited quantities, and the price was once promoted to 13000 dollars. Dior became the famous "shoe king" of the year, attracting celebrities such as Jay Chou, Edison Chen, and Sicong Wang to share their try on photos on social media.

Dior and Jordan Brand can't get together without the help of Kim Jones, artistic director of Dior Men's Wear Series. During his tenure in Louis Vuitton, he created the earth shaking Supreme x Louis Vuitton cooperation series. After coming to Dior, we have successively created several blockbuster joint names, such as Dior x KAWS, Dior x Kongshanji, Dior x Shawn Stussy, etc.

　　Gucci × The North Face

In 2021, Italian luxury Gucci will cooperate with the American outdoor brand The North Face for the first time, with the characteristics of "outdoor" and "sustainable", to develop a complete line, including men's and women's ready to wear clothes, accessories, bags and shoes, and especially launch tents, sleeping bags and other symbolic outdoor functional equipment of the NORTH FACE. The co branded series was launched on more than 100 Pok é mon GO owned by Japanese game company Niantic.

In December of the same year, the two sides co branded the autumn and winter series for the second time. GUCCI's printing pattern became an inspiration to re interpret many prototypes of The North Face in the 1990s, and opened new series of flash stores in many places across the country.

In 2022, on the basis of the previous two co branded cooperation, the two sides will release a new series again, and the types of cooperation items will expand to more than 80 items, including short sleeves, jackets, sweaters, vests, coats, down jackets, casual pants, satchels, backpacks and shoes.

　　Maison Corthay x LI-NING 1990

In 2021, the French luxury shoe brand Maison Corthay will jointly name the new independent senior sports fashion brand LI-NING 1990 under the Li Ning Group, and sell the co branded sports shoes 001 Premium. Based on the Li Ning brand sports shoes, the shoes will be made of calf leather with a texture of * * *, showing the iconic old wood color of Maison Corthay, The natural texture and exquisite carving of the ancient hand rubbing color exude a strong retro temperament.

　　Gucci × Adidas

Since Gucci and Adidas launched their new co branded series at Paris Fashion Week in 2022, which attracted a lot of attention, this year, the two parties jointly launched the new 2023 series, which continues the fashionable and retro flavor of the previous season, covering more than 50 pieces of products such as shoes and hats, T-shirts, jackets, sports pants, etc.

This highlight focuses on shoes and bags. In addition to last year's extremely popular G M SHLDR BAG S sports bag, adidas Gazelle sports shoes with a premium of nearly 10000 yuan have a new interpretation of the two brands' collection elements, and are made of innovative, environment-friendly and sustainable materials Demetra fabrics without animal ingredients from Gucci. This new series also includes slippers and a new adidas ZX 8000 shoe type.

　　Miu Miu x New Balance

At the beginning of 2022, Miu Miu of Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2022 series was first exposed × New Balance 574 shoes welcome * * *. Although the selling price is as high as 5950 yuan, it is still sold out quickly and has a large increase in the secondary market.

In 2023, the two sides started a new chapter of cooperation, reinterpreting the iconic New Balance 574 sneakers, and jointly launched three color combinations, namely Fringed Blue with a tassel decorated blue denim upper, Cognac Denim with a cognac brandy tone denim upper, and Blanched White Leather with a soft pearl color high-end leather upper.

　　Tiffany&Co.x NIKE

In January, Tiffany&Co. and NIKE jointly announced that they would hold * * * joint titles. The series was named "Legendary Pair" to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the birth of Nike Air Force 1. This is also the first time Tiffany has launched sneakers.

This cooperation is Nike's flagship shoe AF1, which uses black leather and suede base, features Tiffany's signature blue-green, covers the polished leather Swoosh logo and insole, and has silver couplets * * * and tongue labels on the heel. At the same time, it is equipped with additional laces and special co branded packaging. The retail price is * * * 2799 yuan.

Tiffany will also launch a series of limited edition sterling silver accessories such as sterling silver whistle, sterling silver shoe horn, shoe brush and Nike x Tiffany&Co. Air Force 1 1837 lace nameplate to highlight the brand's unique style and craftsmanship. The cooperation information of the two sides also appeared on the cover of the New York Times. Some analysts believe that Tiffany and Nike both want to use this joint name to reproduce the myth of the "Footwear King of the Year" in 2023 to attract more young consumers.

Luxury x ACG

From Gucci and Doraemon in Alessandro Michele's time, Mickey and Minnie in Disney's time, to Longchamp, a bag brand, and Pikachu, the cooperation between luxury brands and animation IP is never new. The simplest way is to directly connect the well-known IP image to the printed patterns of clothing, bags, or single items, The other way is to reproduce the virtual products in ACG's works into reality, such as Mickey's big toe derby shoes in Balenciaga 2023 holiday series, Minnie's thick heel inflatable high-heeled shoes on Loewe 2023 spring and summer show, Jimmy Choo's (demand area: 100-200 square meters, representative projects: Chongqing Vientiane City, Wuhan International Plaza Shopping Center, etc.) beautiful girls' battle boots, etc.

Guccix Doraemon

In 2021, Gucci will take advantage of the 50th anniversary of the release of Doraemon cartoons to jointly launch a co branded series. This series of men's and women's clothing will blend the classic blue Doraemon and dual G logos, embellishing different products. The whole series is divided into four themes: lasting friendship, treasure handbags, dream first and matching series, covering more than 50 pieces of clothing, accessories, shoes and hats.

Off line, Doraemon × Gucci themed GUCCI PIN limited time stores are located in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu. Inspired by the pin shaped positioning icon on the interactive digital map, they create a space for exploring comic style, giving people a feeling of passing through and entering the animation space in a second.

Loewe x Ghibli Studio

Since 2021, LOEWE Luo Yiwei and Studio Ghibli have jointly launched a series of trilogy series of special cooperation for three consecutive years with the themes of Hayao Miyazaki's * * * anime "Dragon Cat", "Spirited Away" and "Hal's Mobile Castle".

In 2021, the co branded version of LOEWE x Studio Ghibli's "Dragon Cat" will be sold out soon after its launch. A few months later, LOEWE Luo Yiwei officially released the cooperation model with Spirited Away, which was once sold out of stock. Today, we can still see the co branded sale of "Longmao" and "Spirited Away" that exceeds the original price on the second-hand market.

This year, LOEWE Luo Yiwei chose the animation work "Hal's Moving Castle" as the last shot of the whole co branding. Through embroidery, leather inlay, printing, knitting and other processes, the classic characters in Hal, Sophie, Kasifa, the witch of the wilderness and other animation appeared on the ready-made clothes, bags, accessories.

Jimmy Choo x Beautiful Girl Warrior

This year, Jimmy Choo, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the publication of "The Beautiful Girl Warrior", joined hands with the original author, Naoko Takeuchi, to launch a co branded series, restoring the combat boots of the beautiful girl warrior, and promoting the image of individuality, highlighting the spirit of the times and the common values of women's empowerment.

Jimmy Choo's co branded series of beautiful girl soldiers shows the beautiful quality of women's vitality and enthusiasm through a series of shoes and accessories with the theme of "beautiful girl soldiers", the main character of classic cartoons. Five beautiful girl soldiers and their mentor Luna Cat and other super heroine images were conceived by Naoko Takeuchi and designed by Jimmy Choo.

It can be seen that at present, luxury brands are more in-depth in design inspiration when cooperating with animation works, and the brand is no longer simply using printing or collage to select some infallible "all-in-one" cartoon images to bring exposure to the brand, but starts to consider whether animation culture and brand culture are the same, This will also help the brand to carry out more in-depth cultural borrowing.

Luxury x UGC

After 2021, the trend of the luxury industry's deep participation in the "meta universe" has become increasingly clear. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, Burberry, Versace, Givenchy, Balmain and other well-known luxury brands have participated in NFT in their own ways. The main scene of selling NFT products is focused on the game UGC platform, which often charges through virtual props and value-added services in the game.

Balenciagax Fortress Night game

In 2021, the French luxury brand Balenciaga cooperated with the video game Fortnite (Fortress Night) to release a series of in-game clothing and limited edition physical clothing. These digital costumes draw on the previous series of Balenciaga, and the characters Ramirez, Knight, Doggo and Banshee of * * * in the play design digital costumes. This cooperation also showed Balenciaga's autumn and winter 2021 series, and the limited edition physical clothing was launched at the same time.

Balenciaga's partnership with Epic Games * * * began with the game Afterlife: Tomorrow's World. At that time, Balenciaga produced this game using the illusion engine, and * * * showed the autumn 2021 series through the game. Demna Gvasalia, art director of Balenciaga, said, "I think it is very meaningful to further cooperate to create real Balenciaga clothes for" Fortress Night "and launch new" Fortress Night "physical clothing series in our stores."

Burberry x Mythiacal Games

In August of the same year, the British luxury brand Burberry cooperated with the game platform Mythical Games to launch the "Blackos Block Party" series of limited time and limited quantity NFT goods in the overseas market, including the "Burberry Blacko" virtual image, NFT coat accessories and NFT shoes, so that the purchased equipment can be used by players in the game.

In June 2022, Burberry will cooperate with Mythical Games again to launch the brand's second virtual character "Minny B". In addition to virtual dolls, it also includes Burberry brand video game accessories, including stereo speakers, TB skateboards, lucky horseshoe necklaces and "Shellphone", a mobile phone accessory inspired by seashells, which players can add to the virtual online accessories portfolio.

Since then, the cooperation between luxury brands and UGC has become more frequent. Almost every month, new NFT products have been launched, which is more like opening a new channel to sell brand products through the game platform.

Write at the end

As a long-standing marketing method, brand co branding is becoming more and more common, even more introverted. We can see that some of the strong and powerful co branding sparks enthusiasm, some of the effects are not satisfactory, and more co branding has gone unnoticed. No matter what the final result of co branding is, it is very difficult for brands to give up the opportunity that is expected to make a splash.

After all, in the era when everything can be CP, the X symbol has become the hub connecting brands, and co branded funds have become a new currency for people to people exchanges. Cross border brand co branding will only lead to diversification, and there will be more "unexpected" brands like FENDI and Xicha, Parda and Jiya Coffee, but only by finding common language between brands and doing well in products can we truly achieve good brand co branding effect.