The hilarity ensues when worlds with incompatible chemistry collide.
- Wildest collaborations that will leave you dumbfounded as you scratch your head and wonder what goes on with the PR department.
Time and again, we often see popular brands hosting collaborations with franchises, with at least a shiny folio of exclusive wares to show. As proof, recall your window shopping trip in that downtown department store. As you wade through the crowded aisles, chances are you will come across popular retail brands such as Uniqlo, the Japanese cloth retail conglomerate flaunting their penchant for extravagant jamboree, featuring an expansive host of popular franchises ranging from Minecraft to various anime IPs.
Heck, every imaginable commercial sector, from convenience stores, fast food chains and even pharmaceutical companies, has jumped on the bandwagon. Earlier this winter in Nanjing, I came across an obscure collaboration between Aether Gazer and Lawson when shopping for local brand cup noodles. On a larger scale, Genshin Impact characters decorate the parlours of Pizza Hut in the form of paper cutouts and stickers plastered around the establishment. Chinese smartphone makers are also having a field day when it comes to gacha game collaborations to market their next-gen hardware.
When worlds collide, sparks will fly
Gacha games are not earmarked to the ways of collaboration events and more often than not, the outcome is hit or miss. It’s high-key euphoric to play as your favourite character from your favourite TV show. From a business standpoint, this overlap allows stakeholders to grow the consumer base to their respective IPs through this marketing stunt. In that sense, the benefits are reaped by both parties.
I stand on neutral grounds, with my enjoyment varying based on the execution of the collaboration. To this day, I constantly muse on the masterpiece of a collab bar none – HALL-A x Girls Frontline – whereby the former builds on the lore of the latter with thought-provoking philosophical banter. On the opposite side of the coin, there’s a whole spectrum of weird mergers that got me curious about the thought process in the conference room. So, we asked ourselves, could it get any weirder from here? Spoiler alert, it’s a rabbit hole that leaves you questioning your sanity.
