A number of unusual corporate licensing tie-ins have emerged within the last year. Each makes sense conceptually, although some definitely skew more toward the novelty end of the spectrum than toward the long-term, branded end.
In one of the most recent examples, announced this month, General Mills and Fulton Brewery partnered for HefeWheaties, a limited-edition Hefeweizen (yeast wheat) beer. The brew, which will be available only in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota, at least initially, celebrates both companies’ roots in that region, an early wheat-milling hub.
Even higher on the novelty scale is General Mills’ just-announced partnership with Colorado-based Black Bottle Brewery for an officially sanctioned Count Chocula beer. The brewer previously included the flavor, along with Honey Bunches of Oats, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Golden Grahams varieties, within its limited-batch Cerealiously line, unofficially made with store-bought ingredients. Unlike the Wheaties beer, these brews actually use the cereal as part of the beer-making process.
Both of these products fall within the increasingly popular breakfast-beer sector, although they are likely to have a more limited shelf life than the oatmeal- or coffee-infused varieties that are typically included within this classification.
Speaking of beer, Danish brewery Carlsberg announced in June that it is marketing a line of men’s shampoos, conditioners, and body lotions in Europe under the Carlsberg Beer Beauty label. The products use both Carlsberg’s brand name and its beer as an ingredient. Launched with the brand’s ad agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky Copenhagen, the beauty items are inspired by the fact that some consumers already use beer to wash their hair and skin; the product’s benefits for this purpose are supported by research as well, the company says.
Like cereal and beer or beer and shampoo, rubber tires and rubber shoe soles make a logical-but-unusual pairing. Footwear label Timberland and tire distributor Omni United announced a licensing agreement in November for a line of branded Timberland tires designed to be recycled into Timberland shoe soles when their life on the road is over. The tires are configured for optimal recycling into footwear, as well being quality car and truck parts, and a recycling infrastructure has been set up—from collection points to rubber processing sites to manufacturing locations—to ensure that the shoes will incorporate materials from these specific tires.
This last alliance is meant to be a long-term one; the tires debuted this year, with the first wave of recyclable trade-ins expected to be available for use in footwear by 2017.
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