The Value of Partnerships in Fashion

In our industry, strong brand partnerships are important. Each side benefits greatly from joint promotions, marketing materials, and social media programming. In a time where there are so many brands and everyone is struggling to make themselves seen and heard, it only makes sense to help each other out by cross promoting, especially when your products are complementary.

The best way to begin a partnership beneficial to all parties, is to send out a press release to both of your media contact lists announcing your partnership. This gets you double the exposure, and the press is free. What could be better? I like to follow the press release up with some social media posts and maybe even a blog post explaining why your products work so well together.

Partnerships don’t have to cost anything, but they can really help brands of all sizes in their journey to create brand awareness and generate leads for their company. There are so many great examples of this, but the following are my personal favorite success stories.

Not everyone needs to be this extreme in their partnerships, but what Apple and MasterCard did, ended up being extremely successful. I’m sure most of you have heard of Apple Pay. Well, it was created by these two brands who each had something different to offer, and they saw an opportunity to create something that both of them could contribute to successfully. Now, in almost every store you’ll find that they accept Apple Pay as a valid form of payment. This makes the consumer’s life so much easier. Did you forget your credit card at home? Running out of cash? No problem! Pay with your phone! This was really a genius invention that MasterCard and Apple thought up, and it all started as a brand partnership.

There are also opportunities to get even more creative with your partnership. Just take Walmart and Buzzfeed for example. Don’t they sound like an unlikely pair? They were actually able to reach both of their huge audiences and bring them together through Buzzfeed’s Tasty videos. These are the recipe videos you’ve probably seen on Facebook oh I don’t know, a million times. They’re so addicting to watch, which is probably why Walmart wanted in. Buzzfeed made their recipe videos using food only from Walmart, so that when viewers followed the recipes, they knew exactly what to get and where to get it.

If you’re creative, there are many types of brand partnerships available. By keeping it interesting, and creating value for the consumer, like the above brands did, the possibilities are endless. I highly recommend developing multiple partnerships with brands who are complementary, creative, and great to work with.