When the team at CheekyMac Productions & Channel 10 reached out to us about collaborations for their show ‘Behind the Sash’ - a million ideas & opportunities sprung upon Collabosaurus. Now, it’s not lost on us that this particular Collabosaurus case study isn’t representative of a typical opportunity, nor did it come to life in a typical way, so before we dive into the behind-the-scenes, it’s worth mentioning that..
For the first time in over 4 years of running Collabosaurus, things didn’t (did not) go to plan - in a big way - but thankfully this collaboration was not our first rodeo & we are still finding ways to roll out win/win results, months afterward!
‘Behind the Sash,’ was a new TV show coming to Channel 10 & ‘10 Peach’, is a 10 episode series that follows 4 influential women around Australia, shining a light on issues of injustice & searching for the next Mrs Australia.
Each episode focused on a social injustice issue, such as people experiencing homelessness, & showcased the people behind making the world a better place, as well as action steps the show’s stars took to address the issue.
For one of the episodes, originally planned as episode 1, they were seeking collaborators to team up on a rooftop fundraising event in Melbourne. So, they hopped onto Collabosaurus in search of fashion, beverage, food, photography & goodie bag collaborators.
The offer of exchange? This was tweaked according to each collaboration, but all involved:
Jimmy Brings delivers alcohol in 30mins via their app. They’re an all round awesome company & know the value of TV exposure for their brand. Catching people on their couch while they’re ready to wind down for the evening (& yet couldn’t think of anything worse than having to leave the house again to get to the bottle-o) makes TV the perfect avenue for marketing Jimmy Brings. In a collaboration that focused around in-episode integration, they supplied bar alcohol for the evening.
Designerex is Australia’s largest designer dress sharing platform with over 20,000 listings. The platform allows women to make money with their existing closet, as well as affordably refresh their wardrobe for events with peer-to-peer dress hire. Designerex dressed the show’s stars for the evening in exchange for in-episode integration & social media reach (full transparency, this one in particular didn’t go to plan, more on that later).
Our favourite Melbourne caterer & unrivalled maker of the best chicken sandwiches in the world, Plate Got Ate is headed up by the fabulous Merowyn Hampton. Her spread was eye-catching, quirky & absolutely delicious - she created a table of drool-worthy food for party guests
Influencer management, event management & PR agency Anouconcept teamed up on this opportunity to brand & build the events’ media wall at a discounted rate - safe to say it got snapped a lot on the night!
Prue Aja is the go-to expert for beautiful, empowering photography - especially for business women & the fashion industry. The event was incredibly aligned with Prue’s core values & her captures of the evening are amazing!
Olay supplied 90 x beautiful ‘Luminous Whip Face Moisturisers’ for the guests’ goodie bags in exchange for the experiential reach, alignment & professional photography.
Beauty Boosters supplements are a carefully considered line-up of complexion boosting nutrients designed to optimise skin health. Hello, collagen! Teaming up to gift attendees some fabulous samples, they definitely added to the post-event experience.
In the search for Mrs. Australia, fashion was a core feature of the show! Billini supplied a few shoe options for the shows’ stars & tapped into great social media reach, in-context photos, alignment & credits.
What are goodie bags without the bags? They’re piles of awesome things that are impossible to carry! Event goodie bags are a fantastic branding opportunity, so the team partnered up with New Directions Packaging to create a ‘Women on the Rise’ bag for guests.
While the event went off without a hitch & the team moved to creating additional episodes, it was flagged in post-production that there was a network conflict of interest. Without going into detail, there was an issue that was out of Cheeky Mac Productions’ hands, & it meant that the original collaboration agreement couldn’t go to plan in its entirety.
Unfortunately, television is a cruel mistress & often, original plans need to be adapted in post production.
What did this mean for the brands involved? Well, for Jimmy Brings, Plate Got Ate & Designerex - their expectations of ‘focussed in-show integration’ wasn’t met. This tipped the scales so that their collaborator was benefiting more than they were.
Read on to see what we did to rectify this!
Cheeky Mac Productions did an incredible job creating individual brand videos for Jimmy Brings & Designerex. The value of this kind of TV quality videography & editing, plus brand alignment for ongoing content usage is hard to put a dollar value on. Don’t they look amazing?!
Prue Aja is a well known professional photographer who ensured every collaborating brand left the collaboration with stunning imagery that they could use throughout their content.
The Cheeky Mac team loved Prue & the relationship extended beyond one episode, too!
The show’s stars boasted some attractive social media engagement & reach. For example, @wearsthecrown shared multiple tagged images featuring brands, an Instagram story sequence about the Designerex dresses arriving, and shouted out Plate Got Ate & Designerex via an Instagram Live on the night to her 111,000 followers.
The collaborating brands also shared (& so did we!) Which meant that the social media reach available was leveraged incredibly well.
One of our biggest concerns at Collabosaurus was the changed deliverables for Jimmy Brings. Originally, the agreement was to incorporate the ordering, delivery & set up of Jimmy Brings alcohol into the show’s episode. However, due to an unrelated change in schedule, it meant that the Jimmy Brings logo was featured via the delivery truck in a montage with only a mention of the brand.
With media being a key value point for Jimmy Brings, we stepped in to ensure that they benefited in other ways. We shined a light on Jimmy Brings in some of our media coverage in March / April, such as Smart Company, Startup Daily, She Does This, Ticker TV & Kochie’s Business Builders
The rooftop event was originally to make-up the bulk of the ‘Homegirl’ episode, but needed to be reworked in post-production. The event still featured, however, as a sideline story. The Cheeky Mac Productions team worked really hard to make sure that brands that were promised episode features were called out in a voice over as supporters, & montage footage showcased Jimmy Brings, Plate Got Ate, New Directions Packaging & Anouconcept.
Virgin Inflight Entertainment began airing the show before COVID-19 hit, as well as online reach & broadcast via 10Peach, Channel10, 10Play & 10Bold.
Of course, us proud collaborators at Collabosaurus couldn’t help but share with our networks as well, boosting reach by an additional +50,000 across platforms.
All kinds of collaborations are possible when you get creative! Thankfully, good humans at the core of your collaborations mean that challenges can be faced & collaborations can adapt to remain as win/win as possible.
At Collabosaurus, our clients’ marketing & collaboration goals are our main priority. Collaborations that come out of our platform successfully come to fruition, 99% of the time. In the rare instances when things don’t go to plan, Collabosaurus clients can rest assured that they have a team of partnership experts who can help. We aim to ensure your collaborations are always win/win, whether that’s through help with negotiations, follow ups & ideation approaching changes to a partnership.
Our final tip? Wherever possible, get a Joint Marketing Agreement signed to have clear responsibilities & deliverables (& perhaps even include a contingency plan for risky collaborations).