Drops
In “This is Not a T Shirt,” streetwear co-founder Bobby Hundreds wrote that collaborations should “help layer the brand’s narrative and plant deeper roots with your audience.”
He wrote:
“Collaborations should enhance your brand, tell another side that people don’t know about. Make you multifaceted instead of one-dimensional.”
They are, in other words, as much of a retention tactic (“plant deeper roots with your audience”) as they are an acquisition play.
We were reminded of Bobby’s perspective on collabs yesterday when an admittedly small corner of Twitter ended up talking about the PartyRound x Cometeer collaboration on a “coffee brewed for founders.”
(Cometeer, if you’re unaware, is basically the Allbirds of coffee in that they’ve found intense product-market fit within the startup ecosystem: If there’s Cometeer in the freezer, you can bet there’s a Patagonia on the coatrack and Tree Runners in the closet.)
Our initial reaction? Not all retention efforts need to look like retention efforts.
Collabs, specifically, and drops, more generally, are being employed more often in the CPG space.
For one, they’re viewed as a solution to rising acquisition costs. But there’s also more to it than that.
As Andrea Hernández has been saying for awhile, a segment of the market is turning into status signals (to quote her: “Pantry items want to be seen” and “Pantry KITHS”), and that means brands are anchoring to aesthetic or emotional values more frequently.
Cometeer, as it seems, has struck a chord with founders on the promise of quality coffee, fast (just melt it in your mug with hot water) and opted to double down on that segment of the market with a collab that reinforces an emotional value so closely tied to startup culture (quality, fast).
By focusing on “layering the brand’s narrative,” as Bobby Hundres put it, it also provides another reason to buy. Cometeer is a subscription-only business today, but drops centered on emotional connections like the one with PartyRound (supporting founders, etc) give existing customers an emotional trigger and excuse to buy a one-off product that may help prime more repeat behavior.
(Notably, too: The “sold out” drop page for this collab now directs you to the corporate gifting page on Cometeer’s website.)
Other brands do this, too.
Ugly’s monthly limited edition flavors come to mind (how do we get more Ginger Ale, Hugh?), as do NUGGS more ephemeral, guerrilla-marketing style campaigns.
These efforts, as we’ve seen with other brands, often drive outsized retention dollars without looking like normal retention efforts.
To make it happen, though, you need to have a handle on your core brand and core customer. And if you “want to be seen,” you may want to look outside the CPG space for inspiration on how you can continue to layer that narrative.
The lessons from a streetwear legend are as good a starting point as any.