Have you ever wondered why your favorite clothing store has shirts adorned with Mickey Mouse? Ever walked into CVS and seen sour patch kids ice cream? Welcome to the world of branding and licensing, a magical place of collaboration where everyone walks away happy. Well, it’s actually not quite that simple and there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes.
Say for instance Post wants to collaborate with an ice cream brand to make Fruity Pebbles ice cream. Post would reach out to a licensing agency (a middle man) who would then get in contact with an ice cream company and pitch the idea of Fruity Pebbles ice cream. If the ice cream company also wants to make Fruity Pebbles ice cream they too go through the licensing agency to get approval before they proceed.
When I was little, I thought that my dad bringing home free stuff from work was something everyone got to experience. From my favorite brown t-shirt adorned with the Yoo-Hoo® logo to my pink panter golf clubs, my dad bringing home fun gifts from work felt like Christmas. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized this was a great, unique aspect of my father’s business, and that not every youngster got to enjoy the same delights of free branded things that I did.
Though my dad has worked in branding and licensing for my entire life, I only recently began to understand what exactly that meant or even how to describe my dad’s job to my friends. When I asked my dad to describe branding in his own terms, he stated “consumers develop loyalty to a brand and branding is expanding a brand into other products and services.” An example of this in action is Snickers collaborating with Coffee Mate to make coffee creamer.
In sum, branding is brands hoping to expand into new territory by working with experts in adjacent fields who better understand consumer behavior in a product category to increase the chances of success.
In an industry constantly changing and evolving to meet the needs and wants of consumers, people who work in the field are constantly on the lookout for the next big trend. As of late, an emerging trend is food brand collaborations.
Food is universal. While clothing and accessories are typically targeted at a limited audience, food can be targeted at any and everyone. Many food brands have realized that it is significantly more lucrative to expand into other categories with brands that have a standing stronghold, and both brands get to reap the benefits.
Often getting their inspiration from social media platforms such as TikTok, major food companies have been capitalizing on emerging trends. Because of the advent of online food trends, there is no longer a need to consumer-test products: brands already know that the products they are launching have a customer base. Fans of “pancake cereal,” a popular TikTok trend in 2020 will be happy to know that recently General Mills collaborated with IHOP to create Mini Pancake Cereal in Blueberry and Syrup. Other food collaborations that have recently made their debut appearance at supermarkets include Kellogg’s Rice Krispie Treats and General Mills’ Cinnamon toast crunch both becoming flavored Coffee Mate creamers.
Love it, hate it, indifferent to it, but almost every single person buys at least one new food collaboration “just to try it.” And while there will always be “the next big thing” in an industry that evolves as quickly as branding, for now food collaborations are here to stay.
