Fresh flowers comprise a relatively small category for licensing and collaboration, but one that has become a go-to opportunity for some properties, especially in the fashion and home design areas. Corporate brands represent one IP type that might not come to mind when thinking about floral arrangements, but recent deals show that several brand owners are experimenting with the category. Some of these pairings make perfect sense and are similar to other initiatives that have popped up from time to time over the years. Others are more unexpected and fall into the realm of novelties.
These agreements tend to center on pairing flowers with the brand’s core product, rather than putting the focus on designing a bouquet inspired by the property’s colors or other characteristics, as is typically the case in fashion and other sectors. Most collaborations are limited editions and focus on holidays for which flowers are a common gift:
- Budweiser partnered with UrbanStems, in a deal announced in January of this year. Based on research showing that men also like to receive flowers for Valentine’s Day, and the wordplay of pairing Bud and buds, the partners created the limited-edition This Bud’s For You bouquet, which included an arrangement of a dozen red roses paired with eucalyptus stems in a Budweiser pitcher, with a $15 Instacart gift card that could be used to immediately order a six-pack to go along with the blooms.
- For Valentine’s Day 2022, FTD teamed with Meurisse, the oldest Belgian chocolate brand, for a gift set including a dark chocolate bar in exclusive packaging with a rose-themed design, offered as an add-on purchase to accompany FTD’s Under Your Spell, Timeless Sweetheart Rose, and Melanie bouquets, among others. This marked FTD’s first foray into a chocolate pairing—other companies have done chocolate-and-flower projects like this in the past—and also represented the first time Meurisse had been available in the U.S. market for three decades.
- Last April KFC paired with Proflowers for fried chicken “buckquets” in time for Mother’s Day. The arrangement came in a glass vase with an appliqué resembling a KFC fried chicken bucket, and consisted of a dozen multicolored roses and eight skewers, allowing the recipient to add pieces of Extra Crispy chicken or chicken tenders to the arrangement. A Mother’s Day card was also included. Customers could receive a bouquet by ordering a KFC Sides Lovers Meal on the KFC website or app from May 1-3, which gave them a promo code to order the bouquet from Proflowers, with both delivered on the holiday.
- In 2021, fine crystal brand Baccarat paired with London-based luxury floral subscription and gift box supplier FLOWERBX, in time for Valentine’s Day. The limited gift set included 30 roses in Ivory, Sweet Pink, or Naomi Red, divided into three Baccarat crystal vases. Consumers could place all three in a single arrangement or display them individually in three locations around the house.
Other recent deals in the fresh flower category illustrate the increasing diversity of property types involved. They include The Natural History Museum with Arena Flowers (for a bouquet inspired by the former’s gem collection), influencer Plant Kween with 1-800-Flowers (for a curated collection of plant picks), Bridgerton with UrbanStems (for three floral arrangements inspired by characters on the series, in which flowers are prominent), and British interior designer Matilda Goad with FLOWERBX (for a limited-edition Mother’s Day tulip planter set).
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