Tiffany & Co. + Nike: The case for data-backed brand partnerships

Nike is known for its epic brand collaborations. They’ve successfully partnered with Louis Vuitton, Supreme, Carhartt, Sacai, Off-White, Jacquemus, and Ambush, to name a few. 

But now they’ve teased out what could possibly end up being one of the biggest collaborations of the year - a partnership with the iconic Tiffany & Co. 

Nike and Tiffany & Co. gave us a first look at their collaboration on social media this past weekend. They plan to release black Air Force sneakers with a Tiffany Blue swoosh that will be sold at Tiffany & Co. stores in New York City and internationally through Nike's SNKRS app. The partnership is now anticipated to hit stores this spring with a $400 price tag, and there will only be a very small number of shoes available.

The collaboration is viewed as an attempt for Tiffany & Co. to shed its more “stuffy” reputation and draw in younger Gen Z audiences. 

This is a merging of two very big-name brands, seemingly unrelated and with undoubtedly very different audiences. Yet the buzz is palpable. So how can other brands learn from this collaboration and approach to identify their own “out of the box” partnerships? How do they know if doing so will expand their current audience into a market they hope to capture?

The best way for brands to prove the concept, even in the ideation stage, is to use an audience intelligence tool - one that can not only view their respective audiences but also the interest overlap as well. Brands can use such a tool to both identify and audit partnership opportunities (pre-announcement) and to conduct an analysis of who’s most excited and targetable once the partnership has “dropped” (post-announcement).

The pre-announcement analysis approach can be as simple as follows. We ran an audience report in Affinio on Nike’s USA followers, back in November of 2022, and saw that the largest segment of Fashion Forward Females had Tiffany & Co. as one of their top shopping brands. This insight validates that this partnership would make sense, especially if they were trying to grow this female fan segment. 

The post-announcement analysis can be done by studying those sharing a link about the teaser. Here we’ve run a separate audience report on everyone circulating the tweet originally posted on @TiffanyAndCo on January 29, in its early hours, as a way to study the prospective buyers and admirers. This audience broke out into 5 distinct segments of initial fans:

Now Nike and Tiffany & Co. can get a better view on who’s most excited and how they can target them - or people like them - to grow the buzz further. Right off the mark, we see the teaser audience segments have some resemblance to the original Nike USA following, yet it turns out that the Tiffany & Co. brand is more relevant than Nike to all of these segments except one. Let’s dive into each of these together.

The Luxury Fashionistas segment makes up 25% of the excited teaser crowd, and the majority of its members are females aged 25-34. Their top bio locations include New York, London, and Monterrey. No surprise, the Tiffany & Co. brand scored with higher relevance to them than any other segment. Beyond their love for this brand, they are also interested in Louis Vuitton, Dior, Chanel, and Saint Laurent. In order to target this group further, per the insights uncovered, the following influencers could be enlisted in campaigns: Olivia Palermo (fashion blogger), Bryan Grey Yambao (also known as Bryanboy), or Lily Collins (actress). The best media outlets for advertising this partnership to this segment would be: Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, or Elle Magazine. 

The K-Pop Gen Z segment makes up 24% of this teaser audience, and the majority of its members are females aged 18-24 (the exact audience demographic they are trying to attract). Their top bio locations include Thailand, Japan, and Bangkok. Beyond their love of the Tiffany & Co. brand, they are also interested in Adidas, Saint Laurent, Prada, Gap and Bulgari. Top influencers include the members of BlackPink and BTS, and top media channels include WWD Japan, GQ Japan, or Elle Japan. 

NFT Collectors make up 20% of this teaser audience, and the majority of its members are males aged 25-34. Their top identified bio locations include “metaverse”, “web3”, and New York. This group is also interested in Adidas, Puma, and Lacoste. It’s no surprise that this group is an instant fan of the collab since Nike has been a leader in pushing NFT-based products from the get-go. In order to target the NFT Collectors further, these top influencers could be enlisted: Farokh (Web3 enthusiast), Brian D. Evans (entrepreneur), or Darcy Donavan (crypto investor). Ads could be prioritized through their top media channels of Forbes, WSJ, and Time Magazine. 

The Streetwear & Rap segment makes up 16% of this audience, and the majority of its members are females aged 25-34. Their top bio locations include London, Texas, Washington DC, LA, New York, and Nigeria. Beyond their love of Tiffany & Co., they are also interested in Coach, Adidas, and Christian Louboutin. Their top influencers include Megan Thee Stallion, SZA, and Cardi B, and they can be reached on OutlanderMag.com, complex.com, or TMZ. 

The smallest segment, Sneakerheads, makes up 15% of this audience, and the majority of its members are males aged 25-34. Their top bio locations include New York, Japan, and Toronto. They are the only segment who has a stronger affinity towards the Nike brand than the Tiffany & Co. brand. Beyond their love of Nike, they are also interested in Kith, Yeezy, and Off-White. In order to target them further, the following influencers could be tapped: Travis Scott, Jacques Slade, or Drake. They can be found consuming content on solelinks.com, Sneaker News, and Nice Kicks. 

This Affinio analysis shows how our platform makes it easy to assess brand partnerships before and after the partnership announcement. The data shows which audiences have been captured through the collaboration, and insights on how to further target those audiences. 

Whether you want to identify, validate, or grow a partnership, Affinio has you covered with data-backed insights. Sign up to find your next winning partnership.