As consumers get pickier by the day, brands are upping the marketing game to keep up with their ever-changing and demanding tastes.

Fortunately for those of us in the ad industry, the fierce competition produces some of the best creative work in the history of mankind.

But when two brands get together to deliver a common experience it raises the bar to a whole new level!

Combining the features or use cases of both products/platforms to deliver one message and enhance the user’s overall life is a feat that requires serious creative mettle.

So in this list, we’ll celebrate some of the best brand collaboration campaigns, selected on the basis of how meaningful they were for the end users and how beneficial they would’ve been for the partnering organizations.

FriesList ~ Spotify x McDonald’s

• Agency: Publicis One, DPZ&T (Brazil), Leo Burnett (Columbia)
• Year: 2019 for McDonald’s

McDonald’s and crisp golden french fries have become synonymous with each other.

To add a musical touch to the dining experience, McDonald’s tied up with the world’s most recognizable music streaming platform, Spotify.

Their in-store customers are invited to place their McFries on a code traced on the serving tray liner. When finished, they could open the Spotify app and scan the Spotify code on the tray liner.

After the content was synchronized with the app, users were taken to a Spotify profile named “FriesList”, specially created for the action. Then, they could enjoy the meal and listen to songs from different and exclusive playlists, such as “FriTops of the Moment”, “I’m Out of Fries” or “Someone Stole My Fries.”

I like the gamification going on here and more so, the exclusivity factor at play because only people who engage in the above action can unlock the special reward. It goes to show that rewards need not be monetarily charged for them to be attractive.

Sometimes, getting to access a secret playlist for clout on social media can do the trick as well. The campaign earned international press coverage proving again that with Spotify, creativity is always on the menu.

It is worthwhile to note that Spotify has always been pushing the boundaries when it comes to brand activations.

In 2023, to woo brands to advertise on their platform, they studio-recorded entire actual songs on the basis of the names of CMOs from top companies and hyper-targeted these tracks to those users in a bid to prove their targeting capabilities for advertisers.

Swipe Right on UNO ~ Mattel x Tinder

• Agency: Schbang
• Year: 2019 for Mattel India

To engage youth on dating apps, Mattel tied up with Tinder India. What was their genius move? Creating a dating profile for UNO enthusiasts. Fans of the game could literally match with the UNO brand & have a real flirty conversation.

This isn’t the first time a brand has leveraged dating platforms to connect with youngsters who make up the largest TG on such apps but its certainly the best use case.

With this campaign, not only did the brand introduce UNO enthusiasts to the latest version of the game but also achieved 240 online conversations with Tinder users (the Tinder Profile got over 850 matches).

Many of the matched fans were also called for an exclusive F2F meetup party to share the joy of playing the game together!

Speaking Valayrian ~ Duolingo x HBO Max

In 2022, HBO Max wanted to create hype for the much-anticipated prequel of their landmark series Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon.

To celebrate the release of the HBO Original, their HBO Max Game team extended the partnership with Duolingo, updating its existing High Valyrian course, by adding 150 new vocabulary words and 700 new sentences to help fans of the series learn the totally fictional language spoken on screen.

This was not only a genius way to get people talking (literally) but it also created an intimate association/relationship with the show as ardent fans could feel more connected to the characters.

Usually, you wouldn’t make such a connection – a fictional TV show brand trying to work with a language learning app, but the case study proves that if you think critically, there are many ways to leverage modern digital platforms to create activation avenues for promoting your piece of content or media.

Conclusion

So that was my personal list of the best brand collaboration campaigns in recent years.

Which ones did you enjoy the most? Are there any cool case studies that I missed? Let me know in the comments below!