What NOT To Do In A Brand Collaboration

Balenciaga and Under Armour, what is happening here?!

Under Armour, I am not trying to be hard on you, But what the &*@# are you doing? 
“All press is good press.” is a lie from a bygone era. This is not a good move.

We know what Balenciaga is doing. They are using this as a tongue-in-cheek collaboration as they’ve done previously with Crocs or Vibram. It’s taking high fashion and applying it to very “unstylish” utilitarian products.

But for UA, who has had their share of Me Too issues, as well as desperate stop & start moves in the fashion collaboration space is yet again…desperate. So much so, that they’ll partner with a brand who was exposed as showcasing disgusting children’s BDSM bears. (can’t believe I just wrote that sentence)

Goal of Brand Collaborations

Let's back up and understand what a brand collaboration actually is trying to do. On one side, we have the brand. On the other side, we have a collaborator.
Two brands are trying to come together to share audiences and grow together. We want to find those synergy points between two different audiences. We want to build affinity and grow the brands on either side.

But in this case, who is asking for a Balenciaga x UA collaboration?!

Under Armour needs to take a moment & realize who they are.
Under Armour's brand is athletic, aggro, and rural as a tertiary component. They do quite well in the South with Realtree camo.

But instead, they want to compete with Nike & adidas’ strategy of living in the cultural relevance of LA, NYC & Paris. Those connection points took years of building.
This is not UA’s world.
The quicker they realize the house they actually live in, they can begin to rebuild it & then protect it.
Until then, they will continue to flounder with desperate attempts at relevance while sacrificing their core audience.

Go dive into the Instagram comments…if you dare.

Education:
I joined Joe Pompliano to talk A LOT of the latest in Sports Marketing. If you want to up your knowledge of Sports Biz, there’s not better follow than Joe!

I spoke to a dynamic group of Student Athletes at the NCAA Headquarters on Saturday. If you would like to take the exact Personal Branding Workshop I teach athletes and executives, you can grab that here.

Blessings:

No talk of Athletes or Branding here, but a lot about Faith, Family and Failures. Was honored to join my dear friends on this podcast. We share a heart for bringing people together regardless of backgrounds. Ramo and I worked in Brand Marketing at Nike together, and Erin’s husband is one of my best friends. Hope this can bless you in some way!