How far should your brand stretch?

Stone Island’s latest project, The Calm and the Chaos, sees the brand step directly into the hardcore scene, working with bands including High Vis, Angel Du$t and Knocked Loose.

It feels unexpected, but perhaps not for the obvious reason.

The people themselves make sense for Stone Island. Some already wear the brand, the aesthetic fits, and there is a natural overlap around identity, independence and belonging.

What is more interesting is the cultural space Stone Island has chosen to engage with.

Hardcore is relatively fringe, with strong codes and values around authenticity, community, commitment and independence. So the opportunity for Stone Island is not just to reach a different audience. It is also to strengthen and sharpen values that already sit naturally within the brand.

That got us thinking about a challenge we spend a lot of time helping clients with at 2CV:

• How do you choose the right person, event or cultural partnership for your brand?
• And, perhaps more importantly, how far should you be willing to stretch?

Fit is only the starting point

The obvious question when choosing a partner is whether they fit.

Does this person feel right for the brand? Does the sponsorship make sense? Will consumers understand the connection?

Of course that matters. But if research only leads you to the person or event that feels most like your brand today, it can also lead you towards the safest answer.

And safe does not always create growth.

The right partnership can introduce a brand to new audiences, build new associations or make existing values feel stronger and more relevant.

The challenge is knowing how far you can go before that stretch stops feeling credible.

When we help brands make these decisions at 2CV, there are four things we want to understand:

Fit: does it make sense?

Every person, sponsored event or cultural community comes with meaning already attached.

We want to understand what people associate with them, what they stand for and where that naturally overlaps with the brand.

We’ve used this kind of research to help beauty brands identify the right spokesmodels. The most famous or most liked person is not automatically the right answer. What matters is what they bring with them and whether those associations support the direction the brand wants to take.

Stretch: what does it add?

A partner might bring access to a new audience, increase cultural relevance or strengthen an association the brand wants to own more strongly.

Stone Island’s move into hardcore is a good example. The values of the scene are not completely new to the brand, but they can turn up the volume on ideas like community, authenticity and independence while opening up a less expected cultural space.

The strongest partnerships do not always reinvent what a brand stands for. Sometimes they make something already there feel more distinctive or more relevant.

Permission: will people believe it?

Stretch only works if the connection still feels credible.

This matters particularly when brands enter communities with strong identities of their own. There is a big difference between participating in a culture and simply spotting that it is growing and trying to attach yourself to it.

Research can help brands understand where that line sits.

Does the partnership feel natural? Is it unexpected in a good way? Or does the brand look like it is trying too hard?

For Stone Island, the existing relationship between the brand and people within the hardcore scene helps. The campaign is making a connection more visible, rather than inventing one from scratch.

Shift: what do you want to change?

A partnership needs a clear job to do.

Is the ambition to reach new people? Build relevance? Strengthen premium credentials? Shift an association? Give consumers another reason to consider the brand?

Being clear on that makes it much easier to choose the right partner in the first place.

We’ve helped premium fashion brands understand where sponsorship works hardest, looking beyond visibility to understand brand lift, audience growth and the halo created by the people seen wearing the brand around major sponsored sporting events.

That same thinking can be applied before the investment is made.

If you know what you want to change, research can help identify which people and events are most likely to create that shift, and then measure whether it actually happened.

Research should help brands take the right risk

The role of insight should not be to remove every element of risk from a partnership decision.

If we only use research to identify the most familiar, universally liked or immediately obvious choice, we risk designing the interesting bits out.

Instead, research can give brands the confidence to understand which risks are worth taking.

We have approached those questions from different angles at 2CV, from helping brands find the right spokesmodels to identifying where sponsorship delivers strongest, and understanding the halo created by the people and events a brand chooses to associate with.

The context changes, but the challenge is often the same.

Finding the sweet spot

Brands have more opportunities than ever to show up.

Sport remains hugely powerful, but music, fashion, creators and smaller cultural communities all offer different ways to build audiences and meaning.

That makes choosing where to play, and who to play with, a bigger brand decision than ever.

Stone Island’s move into hardcore is interesting because it finds a balance.

There is enough fit for the relationship to make sense. Enough stretch to make it interesting. Enough permission for the brand to belong there. And a clear opportunity to shift what Stone Island means to a wider audience.

The question is not just: Who fits our brand today?

It is: Who can credibly take our brand somewhere new?