today, i am inspired by the notorious erewhon smoothie. specifically, the sunscreen brand, vacation, smoothie collab. beyond the outlandish price tag, you are probably thinking: why would someone ever pay 18 dollars for this smoothie?
i too, am wondering the same thing. as a 24-year-old, i consider myself to be the prime target demographic for every erewhon smoothie collaboration. thankfully, there is no erewhon in new york (yet), but even if there was, you will not see me paying real money1 for one of their smoothies.
when i see a brand collaboration, in the case of the vacation sunscreen erewhon smoothie, these are the questions that come to my mind:
expansion of customers: is this expanding my target audience?
brand recognition: is this amplifying my brand whether it be through recognition?
free press: is this collaboration generating free marketing and conversation around my brand?
finally, and most importantly, is this authentic to my brand? does this make sense?
while vacation sunscreen got some free press out of this, i doubt they saw significant success. i would argue that the erewhon smoothie is already completely overdone unless you are an influencer or a celebrity. let me explain why.
first-mover advantage: tinx, the first influencer to launch her own smoothie with erewhon, benefited the most from this. she was the first to innovate the collab smoothie, setting off a chain of collabs. now, we have seen so many smoothies that it’s not special - it’s just absurd.
a brand has to market this lot more than an influencer: an influencer can literally just tell people to go. whereas, a brand has to build hype and an entire marketing campaign around a frieking smoothie. this feels like a waste of resources to me when you could be collaborating in more innovative ways.
this is helping erewhon more than it helps vacation sunscreen: is this smoothie really helping you expand your customer base as a sunscreen brand? i have a hard time believing it does. now i know who vacation is, but i’d go to erewhon for the coconut-flavored smoothie, not for the vacation brand. i would argue this move dilutes their brand value.
erewhon recognizes how much these collaborations bring in for them: foot traffic, free press, and free brand awareness (even though they already had that). while this has benefited celebrities, i would suggest brands should follow in vacation’s footsteps:
“this collaboration marks erewhon’s departure from collaborative celebrity smoothies, with vacation the only outside party tied to the drink. the market has recently found massive success by attaching a celebrity name to their co-branded products, with hailey bieber‘s viral “strawberry glaze skin smoothie” quickly becoming a bestseller and brand staple. other smoothie collaborations include bella hadid and kin euphorics, sophia richie, winnie harlow and gisele bündchen.
for brands - think about how collaborations should be authentic to your voice and your audience. no one wants a vacation sunscreen-inspired smoothie, they just like a coconut-flavored summery drink. just because everyone is doing a collab with erewhon, it doesn’t mean you should. think about non-traditional and innovative ways you could collab.
i understand that the vacation smoothie collab was praised and admired, but hear me out. this is a collab i think is really well done: loveshack fancy x stanley.
once again, i am not someone who would purchase this, but i understand and i can visualize exactly the kind of person who would. brand collabs are so trivial these days and in order for them to be done well, you need to understand your customer.
brand collaborations should be a little absurd (i.e. a water bottle company teaming up with a high-end designer) but they should make perfect sense.
— zoya
📚 what i have been reading lately, linked here for you:
https://www.foodandwine.com/erewhon-sunscreen-smoothie-8662324
https://www.thecreativeexchange.co/blog/best-of-brand-collabs-2024
https://www.brandvm.com/post/top-brand-collabs-2024
https://fashionista.com/2022/12/erewhon-smoothie-collabs-marketing
if we are using monopoly money, then i would purchase this smoothie.