Category — Collaborations

So much to love about the recent Chipotle Cultivate Festival in Chicago.  Free to get in, dishes highlighting fresh, local, responsibly grown ingredients, celebrity chefs, great indie bands, and an entire experience dedicated to “learn(ing) about sustainable farming and get rewarded along the way”.

My friends at Loomstate designed their new uniforms and staffed a Loomstate for Chipotle booth at the festival selling exclusive Cultivate products as well as teaching attendees about sustainable production with a farm-to-finish area. Loving the common ground approach – whether the end product is food or clothing, it all starts in the earth. Chipotle proves yet again that being a main stream brand does not mean you have to sell out on your values – you can still get so much right about socially conscious thinking, branding and good business.

Triscuit has teamed up with the non profit Urban Farming to help fuel what they’re calling the Home Farming Movement. The program’s mission is to plant fifty community-based home farms in twenty cities across the United States in 2010 which seem to be the core media generation tool to feed all ancillary outputs of the campaign. To keep the focus relevant to a broad consumer base, they’ve launched a website with a variety of community building and information sharing tools as well as integrating offline cross-over with “seeding” of basil and dill seed packages in select Triscuit packages.

It’s always promising to see a brand of this size taking such a strong step to support emerging social needs and the program does a great job of leveraging the brand’s innate resources to strengthen the home farming movement. What it seems to lack is just the final close of the loop to bring it back to Triscuit’s brand values. How, of all the causes and needs on the social landscape, did they pick this one? With some digging through the site it seems the alliance is with Triscuit’s commitment to simple, quality ingredients, but surely this connection could be made more core to the campaign to make it successful as both a philanthropic and marketing play.

The cross-over comes through really well on their TV spot (below), but somehow on the website and banner ads the connection gets lost a bit in execution. Regardless, the concept is strong and represents a type of thinking I for one hope we see more and more of in the years to come.

My friend Laura introduced me to John Derian’s work with one of his red letter plates and I instantly fell in love with his products and style. Target’s been bringing his eye for whimsy and glamor to the masses with John Derian for Target since 2008. Their new collection drops September 5th – 100 pieces priced from $1.99 – $25 – perfect for keeping summer alive through even the depths of winter.

Dev takes the look book concept to a new level for Hellz Bellz with the video for her new track Booty Bounce:

Dev x Hellz Lookbook from HELLZ on Vimeo.

Target, the master of brand/ artist/ designer collaborations, has created the Harlem Designer Collection in honor of the opening of a new Target location in Harlem. Led by designer couple Isabel and Ruben Toledo – the collection includes tees, bikinis and sarongs is on sale in the store now and will be available online on Sunday, August 1st. Harlem’s El Museo del Barrio will benefit as the recipient of five percent of the purchase price.