Strategic Analysis of Brand Collaborations in the Fashion Industry: A Comparative Analysis of Luxury and Mass-Market Collaborations

Abstract

This dissertation aims to explore the role of brand collaborations as a promotional strategy within the fashion industry, with a particular focus on their impact on both luxury and mass-market brands. The fashion industry is very competitive, and fashion trends are in constant change. Adapting to these trends while maintaining a strong position in the market is a challenge for fashion brands to face them alone. The findings aim to understand the underlying motivations that drive brands from different sectors to collaborate, highlighting how their approaches and objectives are different. Furthermore, it aims to explore the benefits, risks and long-term impacts that these collaborations may have when used as a promotional tool and provide practical examples on the existing literature about collaborations. Three case studies have been used to explore the luxury and mass-market sectors: H&M and Lee, a collaboration inside the mass-market sector, Jimmy Choo and Mugler, a collaboration between two luxury brands and H&M and Mugler, a collaboration that bridges mass-market and luxury. This qualitative analysis was done using information about the collaborations from fashion magazines, press releases, and company reports. The analysis was structured in two themes: brand alignment, to understand the motivations and compatibility and brand collaborations as a promotional strategy to examine the execution of the collaboration campaigns and identify benefits, risks and long-term impacts in the brands. This study reassured what existing literature addressed on how highly aligned brands can generate positive impacts in terms of strengthening current position and values and avoid less risks of misalignments and brand confusion. However, lower aligned brands can also generate positive impacts to the brand, due to complementarity elements that can help the other brand achieve what they are not able to do alone, having an impact on brand equity. Due to the short-term nature of brand collaborations, they are presented as an interesting strategy to, especially luxury brands, that can access new markets without risking a elements like exclusivity due to the short duration and often limited products that collaboration typically offer. However, these short-term projects, if seen as an isolated event, could be a risk for brands that collaborate under the narrative of a controversial element, such as sustainability.