An intellectual property, or IP, is more than a logo. It is a world with characters, music, rules and a community that has spent years inside it. A brand that collaborates with an IP does not have to build that attachment. It gets to step into it.

Four fields dominate the work I see: film , manga and anime, gaming, toys and pop culture. Each follows its own logic, and each shows a different side of what a brand gets and what it gives up. The cases below are the ones with public figures or awards. Public results are rare, and where there are none, the text says so.

Movies: why brands work with characters from films and series

Film and series characters, represented by their actors, can show up in brand collaborations in many ways. There are two main routes. The brand can appear inside the film, through product placement. Or the characters can appear outside the film: on the brand’s products, in its advertising, or as ambassadors in its spots. The second route leaves the most room for creative ideas, because the brand decides what the character does. A very good example is Heinz.

Heinz did not just put its ketchup next to a hero. For Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), the agency Rethink built a campaign that aimed to make sure no one could watch the film without thinking of Heinz ketchup and mustard. It opened with what looked like a new trailer, in which Heinz bottles flashed on screen before Ryan Reynolds froze the frame over the bottles in an original voiceover. A second phase “glitched” Heinz bottles over Marvel’s own outdoor posters (Applied Arts). The outdoor part ran next to the film’s promotion near cinemas, at fan hotspots and on screens inside theatres, and reported more than 65M impressions (Billups). The campaign won at the 2024 Applied Arts awards in several categories. No sales figures are public.

It works because the brand borrowed the film’s own form, not just its characters. Reynolds personally reviewed the scripts for Heinz and Heineken, and Heineken approached his agency Maximum Effort itself (Campaign). Marvel has done this for over a decade: around the first Avengers film in 2012, partners included Hasbro, Hallmark, Kellogg and Fruit of the Loom (License Global).

Anime and manga: why fans buy what carries their favourite character

Collaborations with anime and manga work through things fans can collect or wear: food with characters on the pack, T-shirts, trading cards in a Happy Meal, even guitars. Pokémon, One Piece and Chiikawa are among the franchises that brands come back to again and again. A good example is McDonald’s Japan.

In May 2025, same-store sales rose 14.7% year on year, the largest monthly increase since December 2022. The company credited Happy Meal toys tied to A Minecraft Movie and Chiikawa, with a drink upsizing campaign also helping (Bloomberg). In August 2025 it ran a Happy Meal promotion with Pokémon cards and pulled it in a number of stores, because it could not keep up with the demand (My Nintendo News). The number is shared with a second campaign, and the company reports it, not an independent study.

Pokémon performs especially well. In the US, Oreo built a campaign on the franchise’s logic of rare and common: 16 exclusive characters, with each cookie type matching the rarity of its character, so fans bought multi-packs to collect them. It reported 39% sales growth (WARC).
The latest example is Fender: for Pokémon’s 30th anniversary it announced two guitars with the Pokémon Center, a Red Version Stratocaster and a Green Version Telecaster at 396,000 yen each. They are sold by lottery on Pokémon Center Online, with entries open from November 19 to 24, 2026 (Saiga NAK). The raffle is expected to be completely overrun.

Games: why game worlds travel so well onto products

In gaming, the possibilities for brands are almost limitless. A brand can appear inside a game, on in-game items, or take a game’s characters onto its own products. The last route is the simplest to start with: Nintendo’s characters on candy and snacks are the best-known pattern. A good example is Kit Kat with Super Mario.

Hershey and 7-Eleven ran a Super Mario Kit Kat promotion as a 360-degree program: a sweepstakes with more than $250,000 in prizes, digital media, an endcap and a custom display at Hershey, plus in-store signage, a second display location and banner ads on the 7NOW platform at 7-Eleven. Kit Kat king-size sales at 7-Eleven rose 22% during the promotion, and confection trips were up 3.8% (CSNews). The figures come from the partners’ own entry for an industry award.

It is part of Hershey’s wider work with Nintendo of America: in 2024, Kit Kat and Jolly Rancher packs carried characters from Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Snack and Bakery).
In Germany, Haribo brought out a Super Mario edition in 2021 with gums themed on the game’s items (GIGA). The pattern is broad. The Super Mario Bros. Movie alone had partners such as McDonald’s, which ran its campaign in 118 markets and more than 35,000 locations, plus Shake Shack, 7-Eleven in Mexico, LUSH in 850 stores and a TRUFF hot sauce (Deadline).

Toys and others: why collaborations with toys and pop culture are more common than ever

Toys and pop culture are the widest of the four fields. They include building sets, collectible figures, artists and bands. Many brands want their products to appear in LEGO or as LEGO, and LEGO buys in other IPs in turn. In this field the collaboration is often the product itself. A good example is Daft Punk.

Daft Punk is the case everyone is waiting for. LEGO Ideas has approved the fan submission “Daft Punk Concert” by Robotrock, which features the robots and the Alive 2007 pyramid. LEGO calls it a brand new partnership that goes beyond the set, into events and content across music, culture and creative spaces. The set is in development, with no release date or price yet, and LEGO says there is more to come in 2027 (Jay’s Brick Blog). Daft Punk is a brand even though the band has split. It keeps releasing special editions, and its fan shop sells out of shirts and posters with every new one.

LEGO is also the partner brands want. Its first collaboration with Nike, the Nike Dunk x LEGO set, came out on July 1, 2025, with 1,180 pieces and an exclusive minifigure wearing Dunks (Nike). In the first half of 2025, LEGO’s sales rose 12% to a record 34.6 billion Danish crowns, and partnerships with brands such as Formula One and Jurassic Park were named as part of the reason (RTÉ). Artists work the same way: Hajime Sorayama’s handmade metal Saddle Bag for Dior sold to a few buyers at $33,000 apiece (Highsnobiety).

What brands agree to

A collaboration with a big IP is a licensing deal, and licensing has a typical shape. The licensing agency Rights & Brands describes it as follows:

• The brand pays the owner a percentage of sales, with the rate depending on the product and its use. It usually pays an advance guarantee up front.

• The agreement typically runs two years, then it is renegotiated.

• The brand gets the right to use the trademark, while the owner keeps the copyright.

• Designs go through approval before production, and launch plans and marketing materials follow once products are approved.

• Sales are reported quarterly, even before launch.

The cases above show where else the IP owner stays in control. Reynolds personally reviewed the Heinz and Heineken scripts. Oreo’s cookies followed Pokémon’s own rarity logic.
LEGO’s Daft Punk set started as a fan submission and was approved through LEGO Ideas, with a wider partnership around it. In every case the IP sets the rules of the world, and the brand works inside them.

The cost-benefit question

Whether a collaboration is worth it matters more here than in most marketing decisions. Buying the rights to an IP takes long negotiations and leaves the brand in a tight corset, because the rights holder dictates what it may do and what not. And the rights are only the start. Buying an IP does not produce anything. How the brand uses it, and how that wins reach for the product, is still open. That is how a collaboration turns into a cost trap.

The second risk is who ends up in front. The brand’s own marketing KPIs and its product have to come first. A brand that buys GTA (which is almost impossible anyway) and ends up promoting Rockstar has paid for someone else’s advertising. The same goes for a brand that buys LEGO and mainly advertises LEGO. The brand should be the enabler of the branded experience, and that has to be possible inside the idea an agency or anyone else pitches.

An imaginary case that works. Kellogg’s brings out a LEGO figure for each of its bigger products, with Tony the Tiger as a minifigure that comes in the pack. LEGO collectors who are no fans of Frosties would buy at least one pack, because figures get collected. The hurdle is low, and the chance that they buy a second pack because they liked the taste is real. Sales go up among LEGO fans, and the brand reaches a new audience. Is that a great story yet? No, but a story can be added. The basis, a gain in sales and in audience, is there.

An imaginary case that does not. A pudding maker buys Star Wars rights and shapes the chocolate balls that come with the pudding as baby Grogus. Is there real added value for collectors and fans? Probably not. Whether the Grogu gets eaten or not hardly matters. Even with Grogu on the lid, nobody will carefully peel it off, lick it and stick it in an album, and the story “it’s your Grogu” does not take shape in anyone’s head. Disney would rightly charge a lot for a brand like Star Wars, so this is a deal to stay away from. That does not mean brands should not work with Disney. They need a really good idea to bring to them.

Before a brand signs, it should work through this list:

• Is my product in front? Can it be the enabler of the experience inside the pitched idea, with visibility for the product and not for the IP?

• What is the spillover? Does anyone remember it afterwards, and what does it do for the product?

• Is there a reason to buy? Do collectors and fans get something real, like a figure that is wanted, or just a logo?

• Does a story follow from it? It can come later, but it has to be possible.

• What does it cost beyond the rights? Negotiation, approvals, production and the idea itself are separate bills.

What creative teams can take from it

The strongest cases borrow the logic of the IP, not just its look.

• Use the IP’s own mechanic. Oreo took Pokémon’s rarity logic and turned it into a reason to buy more packs. Heinz copied the form of the film’s own marketing.

• Scarcity sells. McDonald’s Japan ran out of Pokémon cards, and Fender sells its Pokémon guitars by lottery.

• Public results are rare. Only a few cases publish business figures, such as McDonald’s Japan’s 14.7% or Kit Kat’s 22%, and those come from the companies or their award entries. Most show sell-outs or impressions, which says little about the business effect.

• The IP owner holds the reins. Approvals, reporting and creative review sit with the licensor, so the idea has to fit a world the brand does not control.

A free tip

IPs live from the conditions around them, and it is often cheaper to reach their fans through those conditions than through the IP itself. In manga and anime, the obvious route is the artists. A well-known mangaka who draws Naruto or Bleach for a living can create something new for a brand, even in the same style. That is far cheaper, and no additional rights have to be bought. The world is easier to enter that way, especially when the brand has a good idea and a good story.
Sorayama’s work with fashion houses points the same way: the artist’s name travels with the work, and the brand does not have to license a franchise.