There were few brand collaborations that made as big of a splash in recent years as the Liquid Death x e.l.f Cosmetics Corpse Paint drop: a coffin-shaped makeup set that got the full Liquid Death entertainment machine treatment. You may not have bought the actual set itself, but you probably saw the ad where Glothar, slathered with a KISS-esque mug, helps teenage girls get glammed up in a similar fashion where, the end of the 55-second ad, he’s revealed to be their dad. ("Dad?") Maybe. It's unconfirmed.
This seemingly kismet meeting of two very different worlds was, in fact, not kismet at all, and rather a very deliberately planned partnership; a textbook example of Tracksuit’s belief that brand collaborations need to be both true and surprising (read more in our Collab of the Year report here).
How so? Well, it feels true because the brands have met in the middle, where they both thrive. The two share values: culturally fluent, bold, accessible, funny and, of course, internet-first. At the same time, it feels surprising: one’s a canned water company and the other sells make-up. What more can I say? There’s enough friction there for it to feel unexpected.
Other than the obvious reasons why this is mutually beneficial (the increased awareness, the sharing of rabid fanbases), the two brands can also help each other out on certain attributes that drive conversion (e.g. customers). For example, when we dive into Tracksuit data, we see that Liquid Death desperately needs to increase its perception of trust, scoring at the bottom of the category’s pile for the attribute (17%). In comparison, e.l.f sits second in their category (40%), only below Maybelline (52%). Meanwhile, Liquid Death scores highly for “is innovative”, which e.l.f will want to align themselves with, especially as a brand that's been around since 2004, coming up against much younger players like Rhode.
So, it worked, and their first baby has been followed by a second. The brands have just dropped a sequel, reviving the same characters from the first one, but centered around a different product: the “Lip Embalm”, with Liquid Death-flavored lip balms in mini replica cans. You may have seen the “paparazzi” photos (above) of Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev on a cute coffee date with Glothar.
“The collaboration isn’t new, it’s a continuation of what the people have been clamoring for at the intersection of our two brands: bold, bizarre and bonkers,” Kory Marchisotto, Chief Marketing Officer at e.l.f Cosmetics said.
If you’ve got your own idea for a brand collaboration tinkering away at the back of your mind, this is your sign. You need to be able to tell the story of why you’re doing this collab in the first place – and also prove if it worked. That’s where Tracksuit can come in handy; it's one way of understanding whether your cultural moment turned into actual brand momentum.
And if you want to do a brand collaboration but don't quite have any ideas for your perfect partner, take our Tracksuit Collab Generator for a spin, a new custom GPT that suggests brand collaborators based on our "true and surprising" ethos, alongside the Collab Index, a framework we developed in partnership with Bimma Williams in our COTY report. It's a lot of fun.
Talk soon,
P.S. We are looking for someone to replace me on a 10-month contract. This is not a drill! You can write your own version of Shorts and have your grubby fingerprints over so many more outputs of Tracksuit's amazing marketing machine. Get amongst.
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7% ⬆️
USA: Klarna is picking up momentum in the Buy Now Pay Later Services category, as awareness is paying it forward from 47% (Jan’25) to 54% (Dec’25) and consideration has increased from 28% to 34%.
9% ⬆️
New Zealand: Hoka is making moves in the Outdoor Pursuits Footwear category in NZ. Awareness has risen from 27% (Jan'25) to 36% (Dec'25), while consideration has followed increasing from 18% to 23%.
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🤖 ChatGPT are introducing ads into its platform, an inevitability I think we all expected. The Drum has an interesting column on the difference between a paid channel and how ChatGPT is deploying ads, namely due to its nature of being a "decision-making environment." Another good read: Sam Altman's Mad Men Era, which describes OpenAI's massive losses (and future expected funding gap). Remember when he said that advertising was, "a last resort for us as a business model" two years ago?
💻 Relevant to all the above conversation about collaborations, here's a piece about Yahoo trying to reimagine themselves in a modern, irreverent fashion via unexpected partnerships (think: Graza "Extra Virgin Keyboard Oil"). "And I think, in 2026, you will see us out there with a real cadence of bigger swings."
🌐 Welcome to Desocialized Media, an interesting by New York about the personalization of our respective algorithms and how disparate they can be from each other. "The next era of the big platforms is shaping up to one of increasing isolation, of passive consumption stripped of any sense of shared culture." This sounds like a massive problem to me.
🏒 Just a little bit of fun: 8 lessons brand marketers should take from Heated Rivalry.
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