Last week an actress took shares in a betting start-up instead of a fee, ran the creative herself, and helped the company bury a competitor forty times its size.

For those of you with better things to do than track American advertising rows: Sydney Sweeney is the actress from Euphoria, and the face of an American Eagle jeans campaign last year that ate a fortnight of news. Novig is a sports prediction market — a betting exchange for people who’d rather not say betting — worth roughly $500 million, which in its category makes it a small fry..

Sweeney approached them. She didn’t want a fee, she wanted stock. She took equity and a creative partner title, then chose the music, guided the camera angles and rewrote the script.

The commercial isn’t subtle. Sweeney uses all of her…assets. She is naked throughout, covering herself with sports equipment: two footballs held to her chest, a basketball while perched on a hoop, tennis in her underwear, a golf club, a pool table. She repeats the word “sports.” It went up on billboards in Times Square, and Olympic athletes came after them for it. The swimmer Ariarne Titmus, the sprinter Amy Hunt, the surfer Felicity Palmateer squawked, entirely on reasonable grounds, that women’s sport spent a decade fighting for the opposite framing and could have been spared this.

I read about it in Fortune, filed by a writer whose job title is Crypto Fellow. The most instructive talent deal of the year, covered by the cryptocurrency desk.

I have sat through a great many talent negotiations. They concerned billing, per diems, whether they could keep the wardrobe, the jewelry, the car. Nobody asked for equity. Nobody asked to sit in the director’s chair. Occasionally someone asked for a bigger trailer, which everyone understood to mean take me seriously.

The ones asking properly now are the ones worth having. And, this is the part that should interest anyone running a business smaller than Nestlé, you almost certainly can’t afford them any other way.

Forty times the response, one-fortieth the company

The day before, Polymarket had launched its own spot. Polymarket is the whale of the category, valued north of $20 billion, reportedly paying LeBron James $15 million a year, with Derek Jeter, Eli Manning and Spike Lee also in frame.

Polymarket’s Instagram post drew under 55,000 likes. Novig’s drew over 1.2 million.

Before anyone files this under sex sells, which it has done reliably since the invention of the poster, note that the Polymarket ad was also professionally seductive, also had LeBron James in it, and still managed only fifty-five thousand. A well-lit plate of pasta does that.

The difference isn’t flesh. It’s that everyone in the Polymarket spot got paid whether it worked or not, and could be photographed the following Tuesday selling something else entirely. Sweeney had shares. Had the thing landed with a thud, she’d have paid for the privilege of making it. That concentrates the mind in a way no creative brief ever has.

Note also who won. Not the $20 billion company. The small fry.

Why this is an underdog’s weapon

Here is the thing nobody says out loud at conferences. Equity partnership isn’t a luxury strategy that trickles down from the giants. It runs the other way. It is what you use because you cannot outspend the other guys.

A big brand pays cash because cash is the thing it has in abundance and its shares are not, frankly, exciting. You are the reverse. You have very little cash and a stake in something that might be worth a great deal in eight years. That asymmetry is your entire advantage, and most small companies never think to spend it.

Roger Federer is the cleanest illustration on earth. In 2018 Nike wanted to cut his fee. Sit with that: the most bankable, scandal-proof athlete of his generation, and somebody ran a spreadsheet and concluded he’d gone off the boil. He left. In 2019 he took about 3% of On, a Swiss running-shoe company that had started in a garage and could not conceivably have matched Nike’s money. He helped design its tennis line and stayed on after retiring in 2022. That stake has been valued near $400 million — more than the $131 million he earned in twenty-four years of professional tennis. On now turns over around 3.5 billion Swiss francs a year.

On didn’t win Federer by outbidding Nike. It won him by offering something Nike structurally couldn’t.

Ryan Reynolds is the same trade at a scale you might actually recognize: roughly 20% of Aviation American Gin, a small Oregon distillery, sold to Diageo for up to $610 million; roughly 25% of the budget network Mint Mobile, sold to T-Mobile for up to $1.35 billion. Neither business could have afforded him as a hired face. Both could afford him as an owner.

And none of it is new. 50 Cent took equity in Vitaminwater in 2004 rather than a flat fee, helped run it from a reported $100 million to $700 million in three years, and reportedly collected nine figures when Coca-Cola bought the parent. Twenty-two years on, the industry is still working from a template drafted by a rapper. I find that delightful.

Time is the multiplier, and nobody collects it

Now the unglamorous part, which is where the money is, and which matters more to you than to Nestlé.

Everyone objects that audiences get bored. But most campaigns ever wear out their welcome. Most never live long enough to wear in.

A large company that throws away a good campaign after eighteen months has wasted money. A small one has wasted the only campaign it could afford to make. You have the least room of anyone to keep starting again, and you are statistically the most likely to do it, because small companies change direction every time a new hire arrives with opinions.

Which brings us to George Clooney, selling Nespresso since 2006. Twenty years of one man and one raised eyebrow turned a niche Nestlé capsule machine into shorthand for a certain kind of life. And note what Nespresso did this March when it wanted younger customers: it didn’t retire him. It added Dua Lipa for a campaign its CMO calls the biggest in the brand’s forty-year history, and put Clooney in it beside her. Succession, not defenestration.

The bill, payable in full

The risks are real. They are also knowable, which is rather the point; the brands that got hurt are the ones that never priced them.

Adidas and Kanye West is the maximum invoice. Nine years, roughly a tenth of brand revenue, terminated in October 2022 after his antisemitic statements — leaving €1.2 billion of unsellable stock, a €513 million quarterly loss, and a forecast €700 million operating loss the year after. Adidas called it right and called it fast, eighteen days from review to exit. It still took three years to empty the warehouses.

Read that as a ratio rather than a number and it should frighten you more, not less. Adidas lost a tenth of its brand revenue and survived because it had the other nine-tenths. If your partner is the face of your only product line, your exposure isn’t €1.2 billion, it’s everything.

Compare a shallow deal: Prada appointed the Korean actor Kim Soo-hyun in December 2024 and dropped him within days when allegations surfaced that March. Clean, cheap, forgotten by Thursday. That escape hatch is precisely what depth costs you.

Then the subtle bill. When the Novig ad drew fire, its chief executive explained that no comment on women’s sport was intended, and mentioned that Sweeney had driven much of the visual direction. Fortune observed, drily, that he’d thrown her somewhat under the bus. That is what accountability looks like when your partner is an owner: you can’t quietly terminate her, so the pressure finds a public exit.

Volatility runs both ways, too. On 11 August, On missed its quarterly numbers, the shares fell 19%, and Federer’s paper fortune dropped some $52 million before lunch. Your partner’s enthusiasm is now correlated to your results, which is marvelous in a good year.

And the fair counterweight: American Eagle maintains the Sweeney jeans campaign drove awareness and sales, and it did — denim sold out, the news cycle was enormous. A year on, the core brand showed no sustained sales growth and the share price had round-tripped to where it started. Attention is a real asset. It is simply not the same asset as a brand.

How to actually do this without a Hollywood budget

Huda Kattan built one of the world’s biggest beauty brands out of Dubai on exactly this logic — talent, product and owner in one person. The private equity firm TSG Consumer took a minority stake in 2017 at around $200 million of retail sales; by mid-2024 the business was past $300 million; in June 2025 she bought them out entirely. She has said she was told a beauty brand couldn’t be built from Dubai, and that she’d never get her equity back. Two for two.

That’s the aspiration. Here is the practical version for a company with a real budget and no cap-table romance.

Forget celebrity. Buy relevance. You are not signing Sweeney. You are signing the chef every restaurateur in your city already listens to, the physiotherapist your customers quote at each other, the retired national-team player nobody outside your market has heard of. Forty thousand people who buy your category beat four million who don’t. Reach is what big brands purchase because they must sell to everyone. You don’t have to.

Equity is one instrument, not the only one. Most owners of small businesses hear “give away shares” and reasonably stop listening. Fine — the point is skin in the game, and there are cheaper ways to arrange it. A royalty on the line they co-design. A share of profit on that line only. Options that vest over four years so leaving early costs them. A small stake that you can buy back at a set price. All of these produce the behavior you want; none of them hands a stranger a seat at your board.

Start with one line, not the whole brand. Give them a product, a category, a region. If it works, widen it. If they turn out to be a nightmare, you have contained the damage to one SKU rather than your logo.

Vest it, clause it, and write the buyback now. Vesting over years, a morality clause with teeth, and an agreed mechanism to buy them out at a formula price. Do this while everyone is delighted with each other. Nobody negotiates a clean exit in the middle of a scandal.

Don’t give shares to someone you wouldn’t take advice from. This is the real filter. An owner will have opinions about your pricing, your packaging and your hiring. If the thought of that makes you wince, pay a fee and keep your freedom — that is a perfectly respectable answer and it is the right one more often than this industry admits.

Then leave it alone. The most expensive habit in this business is changing direction at the precise moment the work begins to pay. It costs a big company money. It costs a small one the whole bet.

Marketing has been waving for thirty years. New campaign, new face, new platform — all of it beautifully choreographed to distract from how few brands will do the boring, compounding, unglamorous thing of picking something and staying with it.

Equity partnership is the most encouraging development in brand-building in a decade precisely because it finally pays people to stay, and because it is one of the very few weapons that works better in small hands than large ones. It costs more flexibility than a fee. It repays in compounding, which a fee never has and never will.

The brands that win the next ten years will choose somebody, give them a real seat, and then manage the genuinely hard part: sitting still.

Sources: Fortune, Front Office Sports, System1 / IPA, Compound Creativity, Mi3, Forbes, Variety, CBS News, The Grocer, CNN, Malay Mail, Associated Press, WWD

Brand Partnering, a strategic marketing tactic, has emerged as a powerful tool in the modern business landscape. That should come as no surprise since a whopping 71% of consumers claim they are positively predisposed to co-branded partnerships, with 68% of consumers reporting that they are swayed to make buying decisions after encountering partnership campaigns. And it’s clear, considering that 54% of companies credit these alliances with driving over 20% of their total revenue, that Brand Partnering yields tangible results.

Who Should Read This Article:
Business and marketing leaders, brand managers, and corporate strategists looking to explore the transformative power of co-branding and partnerships will find this article invaluable.

Top Insights Readers Will Gain:
• Key strategies for identifying and securing the ideal co-branding partner to complement and enhance your brand’s value.
• Real-world examples of successful partnerships that showcase the potential for expanded customer reach and innovative product offerings.
• Best practices and cautionary tales to navigate the complexities of co-branding, ensuring mutual benefits and sustained growth.

Decoding Brand Partnering
Brand Partnering is a strategic move that can be categorized into three main types: Ingredient Brand Partnerships, Composite Brand Partnerships and Collaborative Brand Partnerships – each type offering different and unique marketing opportunities for all parties.

Ingredient Brand Partnerships
Ingredient Brand Partnerships allow brands to highlight specific features or components of their products or services while leveraging the reputation and expertise of their partner. This type of partnership enables brands to showcase the added value or functionality that arises from the integration of complementary elements, appealing to consumers seeking enhanced capabilities or experiences.

In the 1980s, Brand Partnering gained traction, exemplified by Dell’s collaboration with Intel processors. This classic case of an Ingredient Brand Partnership saw Dell computers incorporating Intel processors, showcasing a partnership that maximized the technical strengths of both companies.

Composite Brand Partnerships
Composite Brand Partnerships provide brands with the opportunity to co-create entirely new offerings that capitalize on the strengths and expertise of both entities. By combining resources, technologies, or creative insights, brands can introduce innovative products or services that address unmet needs or preferences in the market. This type of partnership fosters differentiation and excitement, attracting consumers drawn to novel solutions and collaborative brand experiences.

Another iconic instance is the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, a collaboration between Nike and Apple. This groundbreaking product blended Nike’s expertise in athletic gear with Apple’s technology to seamlessly track and sync workout data.

Collaborative Brand Partnerships
Collaborative Brand Partnerships offer brands the chance to extend their reach, influence, and relevance by aligning with complementary or aspirational partners. Through joint marketing campaigns, co-branded promotions, or via sponsored or shared events, brands can tap into each other’s audiences, cross-pollinating their customer bases and driving engagement. Collaborative partnerships enhance brand visibility, credibility, and memorability, fostering positive associations and affinity among consumers.

One appropriate example would be when Starbucks and Spotify collaborated to enhance the in-store experience for customers by integrating personalized music streaming through Spotify into Starbucks’ establishments. Customers can influence the music played in stores by using the Starbucks app to suggest songs, creating a dynamic and interactive atmosphere that resonates with coffee lovers and music enthusiasts alike.

Another example would be when Rose created the Yasnaya Polyana (Leo Tolstoy) Award for literature in the Russian market on behalf of our client Samsung together with the Tolstoy family and estate. In a groundbreaking collaboration, Samsung bolstered its brand image by aligning with the famous author and supporting local culture while enhancing the status of the Tolstoy brand by building one of the world’s most prestigious awards for novelists.

The landscape of Brand Partnering has seen a remarkable surge in recent decades, indicating its growing importance in modern marketing strategies.

The Pros of Brand Partnering
Brand Partnering offers a myriad of advantages that propel businesses forward in the competitive marketplace:

1. Expanded Reach and Customer Base: Co-branding enables companies to access new markets and customer segments. For example, Etihad and Visa seamlessly integrate travel benefits with payment convenience through the Etihad Guest Visa card, enhancing the overall travel experience across the UAE and reaching a broader audience.
2. Increased Sales: Collaborative partnerships can significantly boost sales by leveraging the strengths of each brand. As recently featured in the movie “Air” starring Matt Damon, Air Jordan’s long collaboration with Nike demonstrates this, as they merged Michael Jordan’s iconic brand with Nike’s innovative prowess, dominating the athletic footwear market and achieving unprecedented sales growth.

3. Sharing of Technology: Partnerships facilitate the sharing of technology and expertise, leading to innovative product offerings. BMW and Louis Vuitton exemplify this through their luxurious collaboration, showcasing custom-designed luggage for the BMW i8 that combines luxury travel with automotive design excellence.
4. Cost Efficiency: By sharing promotional and overhead costs, brands can execute marketing strategies more cost-effectively. Taco Bell and Doritos’ partnership is a prime example, as they infused Doritos’ bold flavors into Taco Bell’s menu, driving sales growth while minimizing marketing expenses.
5. Corporate Social Responsibility: Brand Partnerships can also align with corporate social responsibility initiatives, enhancing brand reputation and consumer engagement. UNICEF and Target’s collaboration introduces Kid Power bands, encouraging children to stay active while supporting UNICEF’s mission to combat child hunger worldwide, demonstrating the positive impact of co-branding on social causes.

The Cons of Brand Partnering
While Brand Partnering offers numerous benefits, it also comes with its own set of challenges and risks that businesses must navigate effectively:

1. Brand Mismatch: There’s a risk of brand misalignment and potential confusion among customers when partnering with another brand. For instance, if the brand images or target markets don’t align, it can lead to customer disengagement and loss of trust. Target and Neiman Marcus aimed to merge affordability with luxury but misunderstood their audience’s perception of “affordable,” leading to a disconnect with customers. The collaboration ended with heavy discounts to offload unsold high-priced items.
2. Lack of Exclusivity: Exclusivity and transparency are key factors in forming and maintaining successful strategic alliances. Talks between Apple and PayPal for Apple Pay integration fell apart when Apple discovered PayPal’s collaboration with Samsung, demonstrating the fragility of trust in partnership negotiations.

3. Conflict of Values: Partnerships must reflect shared values, especially in response to evolving public and consumer advocacy. The longstanding LEGO and Shell partnership involved co-branding initiatives where LEGO produced promotional toys featuring Shell’s branding, often distributed as part of marketing campaigns at Shell gas stations. However, the partnership faced backlash from environmental activists and concerned consumers who criticized Shell’s environmental practices, leading to LEGO ending the collaboration due to public pressure over environmental concerns.

4. Exploiting Customers: Consumer consent and preferences should be at the forefront of promotional strategies. Apple and U2’s partnership to preload “Songs of Innocence” onto iTunes users’ libraries without consent backfired, irritating users who felt their choice was undermined. The initiative damaged the reputations of both Apple and U2. Understanding and aligning with customer expectations is crucial in co-branding ventures.

While Brand Partnering can be a powerful strategy for growth and innovation, it’s crucial for businesses to carefully consider the potential drawbacks and take proactive steps to mitigate risks and ensure successful collaborations.

Mastering Brand Partnering
Successful Brand Partnering begins with selecting partners whose values, mission, and audience align seamlessly. This alignment ensures that the partnership resonates authentically with both brands’ audiences, fostering genuine connections and driving meaningful engagement.

Clear and open communication is the lifeblood of any successful partnership. Establishing transparent channels for dialogue and setting clear expectations from the outset lays the foundation for trust and collaboration. It’s crucial to articulate each party’s roles, responsibilities, and objectives, ensuring alignment and minimizing misunderstandings along the way.

A mutually beneficial relationship is the hallmark of a successful brand partnership. Each party should bring unique strengths and assets to the table, creating value that extends beyond individual capabilities. By identifying shared goals and leveraging complementary resources, brands can unlock new opportunities for growth and innovation while delivering added value to their audiences.

Navigating the legal and financial landscape of Brand Partnerships requires diligence and foresight. From drafting comprehensive agreements to defining financial arrangements, it’s essential to protect both parties’ interests and mitigate potential risks. Investing time and resources in robust legal and financial frameworks upfront can safeguard against disputes and setbacks down the line.

Anticipating and addressing potential conflicts is a proactive approach to preserving the integrity of the partnership. By conducting thorough assessments of values, objectives, and potential areas of tension, brands can preemptively identify and mitigate sources of discord. This proactive stance fosters a collaborative environment where challenges are met head-on, leading to stronger, more resilient partnerships.

Balancing the dynamics of a brand partnership is both art and a science. Striking the right equilibrium ensures that each brand maintains its identity and voice while contributing to a harmonious whole. By embracing diversity and leveraging each other’s strengths, brands can cultivate a dynamic partnership that elevates both parties and delivers lasting value to their audiences.

The Future of Brand Partnering
As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, Brand Partnerships stand at the forefront of innovation, poised to redefine the very fabric of consumer engagement. With emerging technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), brands are venturing into immersive experiences that blur the lines between the physical and digital realms.

Verizon’s collaboration with The Black Pumas and Snapchat on the ‘5G Built Right for Snapchat’ campaign stands out as a prime example. By leveraging AR technology, Verizon showcased its 5G network capabilities and Snapchat promoted its new features through a virtual concert experience. Lead singer Eric Burtons performed in AR in front of iconic landmarks like the New York Public Library, enriching the surroundings with vibrant colors and dynamic visuals. This fusion of 5G technology, location-based content, and live entertainment demonstrates the potential of AR in elevating brand messaging and customer engagement.

Of course, technology on its own won’t drive innovation. Most often Brand Partnering success is achieved through creativity and the union of two brands that magically find a 1+1=3 formula for success, sometimes in surprising ways.

Take, for instance, the collaboration between IKEA and ASUS ROG, where gaming meets interior design. By combining their expertise, IKEA and ASUS ROG have crafted a collection of gaming furniture and accessories that seamlessly blend style with functionality. From ergonomic gaming chairs to cable-managed desks, this partnership exemplifies the convergence of lifestyle and technology, catering to the growing gaming community’s needs in a stylish and practical manner.

Even in the business-to-business realm, brands like Semrush and Surfer are revolutionizing the way marketers approach search engine optimization (SEO) with their collaborative integration. By integrating their respective tools, these industry leaders empower marketers to enhance their link-building strategies, driving greater efficiency and effectiveness in digital marketing campaigns. This partnership not only benefits their existing customer base but also extends their reach to new audiences, showcasing the power of collaboration in driving brand awareness and customer engagement.

Moreover, brand collaborations are transcending traditional boundaries, as seen in the partnership between Starbucks and Samsung. By joining forces, these iconic brands have created a limited-edition line of coffee-themed accessories, blending technology with fashion in a truly innovative way. From themed phone cases to stylish earbud covers, this collaboration demonstrates the potential for brands to leverage their unique strengths and create products that resonate with consumers on a deeper level.

Even unexpected collaborations, such as Oreo and Supreme, are reshaping the brand landscape by tapping into niche markets and sparking consumer excitement. By combining the iconic Oreo cookie with Supreme’s streetwear fashion aesthetic, this partnership has captured the attention of fans worldwide, underscoring the importance of creativity and authenticity in brand collaborations.

As we look ahead to the future, one thing is clear: the possibilities for Brand Partnerships are limitless. By embracing innovation, creativity, and strategic collaboration, brands can unlock new opportunities for growth and differentiation in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The future of Brand Partnerships is not just about collaboration—it’s about creating experiences that captivate, inspire, and resonate with audiences around the globe.
A Shameless Plug
Looking to elevate your brand through strategic partnerships? Let us be your partner in success. Rose has extensive experience negotiating and managing collaborations for major brands like Samsung, Lexus and Tabasco. We’re here to help you unlock new opportunities and drive growth. Give us a shout.

Sources:
Hubspot
Statista
Association of National Advertisers