Andrew Wiseman argues that most brand collaborations aren’t bold ideas. They’re just shortcuts to attention.
I was reading earlier about IKEA and Chupa Chups’ ‘April fools turned reality’ with the upcoming giveaway of Meatball flavour lollipops. Once I got beyond the idea of a meatball on a stick, I started thinking about how these unexpected pairings make you stop and look twice.
As an idea, it’s playful. It’s shareable. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do.
But it also raises a more interesting question:
What actually makes an unlikely brand collaboration like this work?
Because, let’s be honest, there’s no shortage of these if you spend just a couple of minutes online.
The problem with “unexpected”
There’s a growing assumption in marketing that unexpected means effective. If it surprises people, it must be good for the brand.
At the end of the day, most unlikely collaborations don’t build brands. They borrow attention for a short while and give very little back.
People judge brands on meaning. It’s often an emotional, rather than logical, rational thing. If a collaboration doesn’t add meaning, it risks creating confusion instead.
What actually makes a brand stretch work?
We’ve talked about brand stretch before. But, if you strip it back, the collaborations that land tend to do three things well.
1. They make sense emotionally.
On paper, you can justify almost any partnership. Shared audiences. Overlapping demographics. A neat PR story. But that’s not how people experience brands. The collaborations that work tend to feel instinctively right, even if they’re unexpected.
Take LEGO and Adidas. It’s not an obvious pairing. It works because both brands are rooted in creativity, play, and self-expression. The connection is emotional. Compare that to the many collaborations that feel like they’ve been stitched together in a meeting room. They make sense on paper but don’t land in the real world.
2. Each brand has a clear role.
The best collaborations aren’t evenly split. They work because each brand brings something different.
Often one brings cultural meaning or distinctiveness. The other brings functional credibility or a new context. If we take an example where Heinz partners with Absolut Vodka.
Heinz brings familiarity and recognisability. Absolut brings a more premium, adult context. Together, they create something neither could do alone. Where collaborations fall down is when both brands are trying to do the same job, or when neither brings anything distinctive. That’s when it starts to feel like a logo swap.
3. They build the brand, not just the buzz.
It’s very easy to create something that gets attention. It’s much harder to create something that changes how people see your brand. A lot of unlikely collaborations are designed for the moment:
- a spike in PR
- a burst of social engagement
- a limited-edition drop
Once that moment passes, there’s often very little left behind.
That’s the challenge with ideas like the IKEA x Chupa Chups April Fools collaboration. They entertain in the moment. They’re not always designed to build meaning over time.
At Mustard, that’s the question we keep coming back to: Did this change what people believe about the brand?
The risk no one talks about
There’s also a downside that often gets overlooked. Every time a brand stretches into a new space, it sends a signal about what it stands for.
Do that in a way that feels coherent and you strengthen the brand. Do it in a way that feels random and you start to dilute it.
Dilution is subtle. It doesn’t show up immediately.
Over time, those small moments of confusion add up:
- What are they actually about?
- Why are they doing this?
- This doesn’t feel like them.
That’s how brands lose clarity. Not through one big mistake, but through lots of small, inconsistent moves.
So what should brands do?
This isn’t an argument against collaboration or brand stretch. Done well, they can be powerful. They can open up new audiences, reinforce distinctive assets, and add fresh meaning to a brand. But the bar should be higher than “it’s unexpected”.
Before jumping into any unlikely partnership, there are a few simple questions worth asking:
- Does this feel right for our brand, not just on paper but instinctively?
- What role are we playing in this, and is it clear?
- Will this leave a lasting impression on how people see us?
If the answers aren’t clear, the idea probably isn’t as strong as it first seemed.
What matters MORE than surprise?
April Fools collaborations are interesting because they remove the stakes. They don’t have to work commercially. They just have to land culturally. That makes them a useful test.
Does this feel like the brand, or just something the brand is doing? There’s no shortage of brands trying to do surprising things. Surprise is easy.
What’s harder, and far more valuable, is coherence. The brands that get this right aren’t chasing attention. They’re building meaning, one decision at a time. And that’s what makes the difference between something that gets talked about and something that actually builds a brand.