Glue’s Carla Bowden on collaborations, creativity – and thinking differently about IP

Carla, thanks for making time. Can you give us a quick introduction to Glue.
Glue is a remote, David-sized company of five people with Goliath clients, including the likes of Warner Bros, Hasbro, Universal, Netflix and Paramount to name a few… And we just celebrated our 10-year anniversary earlier this year!

Congrats! And what led you to launch the company?
I founded Glue after heading up Disney’s Halo Brand Collaborations for seven years. I saw how I could support more companies in accomplishing epic collaborations, as well as creating a corporate – or not so corporate – structure that was better suited to me!

We like to think differently about traditional IP, seeing where we can revitalise and refresh properties through unexpected collaborations and products that make sense to new and existing fans.

Your company strapline says you are ‘the glue that joins big brands, creative individuals and commerciality together’. Why do you think that the ‘glue’ is needed? And how do you ensure the ‘glue’ does it job?
We’ve great experience in being the nimble team in the middle of the corporate entertainment and creative fashion worlds. From our backgrounds in fashion, entertainment and commercial, we know how each industry works and how they should be joined together in a way that sticks. Strategizing a suitable proposal, executing the project efficiently and managing all that’s involved takes quite a bit of sticking power!

“We have a lot of ‘pinch me’ moments with the clients and properties we get to work with.”

Being a small team means we can react quickly to the unexpected – which we’ve come to expect! We help usher large teams and departments to the fashion industry’s lead times, as well as ensure creatives are able to feel expressive within the boundaries of brand guidelines.

Glue understands each party’s perspectives, their needs and ensures they all remain aligned, we do this with an understanding of how this will play into the consumers and market’s needs as well.

You have an impressive roster of clients to your name. One project that immediately caught my eye was your work with Game of Thrones, Fabergé and Michele Clapton. Can you talk us through this project?
Thank you! We have a lot of ‘pinch me’ moments with the clients and properties we get to work with, Michele being one of them! As the costume designer for Game of Thrones, Michele’s work is impeccable and to support her in new ventures is incredibly rewarding!

Fabergé and Warner Bros wanted Michele to translate her iconic Game of Thrones styling into one of Fabergé’s collectible eggs – much like Daenerys’ dragon eggs! So we supported Michele in the business conversations and contractuals so that she could focus her energy on the design and creative.

We’re able to support and manage projects from start to finish or hand over with clear instructions at any stage – it all depends on the project and the needs of the client.

You also developed a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collaboration with PROSPECT 100. What inspired this – and how did you steer this partnership to a successful conclusion?
This was such a fun project! With Viacom’s objective to reconnect with Gen Z and Millennials, we approached PROSPECT 100 as they are a youth driven entity – they very much know what’s what and who’s who!

“While the market is alive with collaborations, there are always new ways to create something that stands out.”

To revitalise the famous four turtles and appeal to new and existing fans, we blended cultural leaders with IP experts such as Colm Dillane (KidSuper) & Kevin Eastman (TMNT’s original co-creator) to form the judging panel of a competition for aspiring creatives.

Over 3,000 global entries were collected and the winner’s designs were commercialised into Amazon POD apparel, accessories and more! This created a melting pot of viral moments and sharable content with a core understanding of the Turtles, its history and demographic.

You have also worked with Squishmallows. Can you tell us more about this and the partners you worked with?
We worked with Jazwares to strategise their first fully owned IP, building a three-year strategy focusing on the US. We kicked off with category leaders Dolls Kill, Nails Inc & Girls Crew, each marrying their own cutesy aesthetic with Squishmallow’s lovable characters.

We aim to work with brands that blend seamlessly, creating desirable product that make sense for their shared demographics. We worked with elevated fashion and lifestyle brands to allow for the trickle down to be captured by Jazwares in mass market licensed product.

Fantastic. You also worked with Universal on brands and films like Minions and Despicable Me 3. Is it more of a challenge to find new ideas and partnerships when a brand is well established in licensing, with lots of licensees on board already?
Being able to work across franchises and heritage brands encourages us to push our ideas further each time – which we really enjoy!

For the first Minions, there was clear space for adult focused product – a gap Universal wanted to fill. We secured six designers and brands at multiple price points with varying interpretations of the Minions. We secured a pop-up at Selfridges, managing everything from the designers down to the banana-themed food, as well as activations being hosted at 10 Corso Como Seoul and IT China.

We were even able to broker the first ever deal with Pantone for a new colour – Minion Yellow – which is still in the Pantone book today!

By the third movie we wanted to create product that still held that initial joy and spark! We commissioned artists – Craig & Karl – to revitalise the iconic yellow characters in their own handwriting. This created a whole new style guide for designers and brands to get excited by, as well as providing product to consumers to add to their collections in a whole new way!

When developing collaborations, how do you ensure all partners achieve their objectives and feel satisfied?
We’re incredibly detailed and transparent across all areas of the proposal and strategy upfront, ensuring all parties are aligned to the core objective at each stage and continuously.

Most, if not all, of our clients are repeat clients – and they’ll even bring us on to projects when they’ve joined a new company! From learning and seeing the positive effects with halo and brand collaborations, they look to share this with their new teams and marketing campaigns.

Sometimes it takes time to educate new faces and we are always happy to support Consumer Product Managers on these internal chats. We definitely see projects at their strongest when all decision makers and departments are involved and on board.

If you had to highlight the key reasons brand owners should consider collaborations with other brands, what would those reasons be?
Collaborations have become incredibly popular between entertainment and fashion with their accessibility to new and relevant markets, revitalising iconic IP, integrating into relevant product categories and even invigorating struggling ones.

While the market is certainly alive with collaborations, there are always new ways to create something that stands out. Emerging creatives push the boundaries whilst heritage brands provide the platform to explore this on a larger scale. Technology opens the doors for new arenas whilst we love to connect with memories of our childhoods.

Collaborations are a way for us to experience all of this and more, for us to wear our favourite childhood characters in a way we’ve never seen them before and reconnect with them in a whole new way. Collaborations ultimately help brands build and strengthen their ongoing relationship with fans, both new and across generations.

Are there set ways of measuring Return on Investment in the partnerships you broker and develop?
Halo brand collaborations can be the pinnacle point of a marketing campaign, if done and then followed, correctly.

By creating noise and relevancy around an IP and elevating it into the cultural spotlight through a collaboration and activation, we aim to create a longstanding and sustainable conversation piece. This is cemented with strategic and comprehensive PR plans, leveraging the party’s best practices and network from KOLs to in-house PR teams.

The trickle down that a halo collaboration can make into mass market aims to last years, if not longer. Paramount did an incredible job of this after SpongeBob Gold by re-creating the campaign in multiple territories and capturing the ripple effect with a strategic licensing programme across mass product.

“It’s rare we’ll get a formal brief… It tends to be discussed over drinks at BLE!”

When selecting brands to partner with, do you have a screening process for which brands to work with?
With our not so little black book of designers, brands and creatives, we have a firm understanding of who’s looking for what when it comes to collaborations. When we’re briefed on new opportunities, we can scope out the interest quite quickly.

We excel in Young Adult – Adult product categories and tend to have a strong gut feeling whether it’s going to work or not… Getting to work with our favourite childhood characters always helps too!

What makes a good brief for you?
To be honest – it’s quite rare we’ll ever actually get a formal brief… It tends to be discussed over drinks at BLE! We trust we’re a very approachable team so it tends to be we meet and catch up with clients and new opportunities come from there!

Once we have an understanding on the objectives, key territories, demographics and product categories; we will share three to five proposals with a shopping list of options for the client to select from – and then we hit the ground running!

Last question! If you had the chance to create a collaboration between any licensed brand of your choice and a partner brand with no restrictions – what would it be and why would it work?
Well, that would be nearly giving all of our secrets away wouldn’t it! But we certainly have our eyes on a few industries… Gaming, music and live action are all areas that we could create a lot of fun moments with – and plan to do so!

We’re also having a lot of fun working with the Ketnipz team! Harry Hambley is the illustrator of Bean – Instagram’s favourite mental health awareness advocate. He has incredible design ideas that blends Ketnipz’s cute and witty aesthetic into product in such a unique and fun way. Brands have been loving it and we’re excited to reveal what we’ve been working on!

Please feel free to get in touch with our Project Manager Saskia on [email protected] if you’d like to learn more about Glue or talk about any collaboration ideas you’d like to bring to life… We’re always up for chatting!

Thanks again Carla!