Derrick Teal  I  Editor-in-Chief

Doritos, MTN Dew, Rockstar Energy Drink and Xbox; Pepsi MAX and EA Sports FC; Tim Hortons and Baileys; Nespresso and Blue Bottle Coffee; Vlasic Pickles and Frank’s RedHot…these are a sampling of the partnerships that were announced just in October. There were quite a few more the previous month, and even more for the past year in general.

I’ve thought about writing this for a while now, which should tell you a little bit about how much we’ve been seeing this trend. On the outside, it looks like a marketing gimmick: Put a couple of well-known brands (or influencers) together and wait for a bump in sales. To a cynic, like me, it looks like, “Well, we’ve maxed out our customer base, so instead of trying something new, we’ll piggyback on another brand to see if we can get some of their customers to start buying our product.”

Don’t get me wrong, there have been successful partnerships before, like this April Fools’ Day joke. But it feels like companies are just partnering with…whomever…in an effort to “trend” on social media. It feels like it’s less about product development and more about getting attention.

Of course, I understand if it helps sales, even if only briefly. But it just looks like brands are trying too hard. It looks…desperate, like the dad that really wants his kids and their friends to think he’s cool (this is TOTALLY unrelated to my real life). What do you think? Let me know at teald@bnpmedia.com. FE

Cheers,
Derrick