30,000 new products are launched every year in the US alone. That’s too many damn products to choose from and I’m not the only one who thinks so. A global study by the Kearney Consumer Institute found that around a third of respondents said there are too many grocery store product options (35%) and restaurant options (34%) to choose from. Let me remind everyone that decision fatigue is a real thing. 

And this smorgasbord of choice is having a pretty significant impact on brand loyalty. Of course, it isn’t just that there are too many products to choose from. There’s just a wholesale skepticism of institutions, according to the Kearney report, with 48% of consumers around the world (and 53% of Americans) thinking that brands don’t have their best interests in mind. 

So, brands end up resorting to all kinds of tactics to stay relevant to an ever-increasing tribe of consumer tribes, and these tactics include collaborations with other brands. To be fair, brand loyalty hasn’t completely kicked the proverbial bucket; it’s just a concept in flux. Consumers today are far more interested in the value and the purpose that products offer and how these align with their own beliefs and personal experiences, rather than the brand itself.

So collaborations have to make sense to consumers. They need to be more than just a tie-up with some random celebrity who’s highly unlikely to use that actual product. Over the last few years, the only brand partnerships I remember are the ones that have been clearly publicity stunts - like deodorants that smell like fried chicken or nail polish that tastes like condiments. Who exactly wants these?

We’re at a point where food and drink launches need to have a functional aspect to them – from the straightforward low/no sugar or high protein claims to the more metaphysical mood and emotional benefits through functional ingredients. Why not have collaborations that have functional benefits as well? 

And over the last few months, this is what I’ve been seeing: a bunch of brand partnerships that DON’T feel like surface-level stunts. Instead, they come across as deeper integrations, where the who and why of the collab actually enhances the what. And that is going to be the future of brand collabs.

Check out these brand partnerships that seem to go beyond buzz to deliver real-life impact.

Modern lifestyles and values have not just taken a toll on brand loyalty, but also on attention spans. A Japanese study found that nearly 80% of employees in the country struggle to concentrate in the office. And this little insight appears to be what spurred confectionery giant Lotte to position its new gum launch, Shu-Chew Beats, as a concentration-boosting tool. 

Consumers are meant to pair the gum chewing (which can aid focus) with custom-composed tracks meant for specific concentration needs for a double dose of focus. Lotte worked with a neuroscientist and Japanese electronic music artists to develop this product collaboration. There are 3 gum variants and 3 corresponding music options that work in tandem to improve focus for different types of tasks.

Combining gum (a physical anchor) with neuroscience-informed audio (a cognitive anchor), Lotte’s Shu-Chew Beats can be seen as a tool for self-optimization for consumers looking for clarity and control in overwhelming environments. 

Another group looking for greater focus is gamers, with gamer food increasingly becoming a category unto its own. And Mars is looking to capitalize on the needs of this group and has been working with gaming computers and accessories maker Razer since 2019. In 2025, Mars and Razer launched a range of mints and gums called Respawn, developed with inputs from 30,000 gamers. This range, available currently in the US, contains B vitamins and green tea extract to boost energy and focus.

UK-based beverage brand Trip teamed up with mental wellness app Calm to launch a new functional beverage called Trip Wild Strawberry. This drink incorporates a blend of functional ingredients known to reduce stress and improve mood, including chamomile, lemon balm, magnesium, and lion’s mane mushroom. In addition to the wellbeing benefits of the product itself, each can of the drink gives the buyer a 3-month free membership to Calm.

The product was initially launched as part of Sainsbury’s Meal Deal, giving people the chance to have a mid-day reset during their lunch break, further enhancing the mental wellbeing aspect of the product. 

Indian ice cream brand Go Zero’s collab with menstrual care brand Nua is delightfully low-tech but massively high-impact. And it came from just watching what people actually do.

The women on the Go Zero team noticed they were instinctively reaching for the brand’s chocolate ice cream during their periods. Comfort food, plain and simple.

So they tested a simple hypothesis: if period = cravings, why not offer a little relief alongside the pads? On quick commerce platform Blinkit, they began showing Go Zero’s chocolate SKUs to customers buying feminine hygiene products, without any discounts or campaigns. 

This contextual relevance proved to be a winning combo, and resulted in a 4X return on ad spend, better than any campaign they had run before. Go Zero has now turned this little behavioral observation into a full-blown partnership with Nua, bundling period care products with ice cream.   

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: it’s no longer enough for food to be functional. Now the partnership has to be functional too.

Every one of these examples delivers a clear benefit: helping you focus, relax, find comfort, or stay locked in. It’s a shift from treating the product as the sole hero to making the collaboration itself a performance tool.

The partner choices aren’t random either. Each brings genuine credibility to deliver on the promised benefit, which in turn reinforces the product’s purpose. These activations work because they slip neatly into people’s lives, enhancing habits consumers already have rather than demanding new ones.

And what I thought was incredibly smart was how each brand has built a micro-ecosystem of value around the product, stacking layers of utility so the whole experience becomes more than the sum of its parts.

What these collaborations also show is that value isn’t just about price, portion size, or a clever flavour anymore. Value now comes from usefulness, timing, and personal relevance. Essentially, being at the right place at the right time with something that genuinely helps.

And that lines up with another aspect of what the Kearney research tells us. Shoppers are pretty sick of retailers going on and on about “low prices.” That’s definitely important for them, but what they also want is “affordable luxuries” and “small wins” and help with product discovery. They want the thrill of finding products that feel exciting, indulgent, or simply make life better in small but meaningful ways. Which is what such collaborations can do. 

Functional food reshaped categories. Now comes the harder part: functional brand building, where partnerships aren’t about hype but about relevance, discovery, and genuine consumer benefit.

The real takeaway is that if your next collaboration doesn’t help people do something better, feel something deeper, or discover something they didn’t know they needed, it’s probably just another logo swap – and consumers are too savvy, and too bored, to care.

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