Finding invested partners like Rousteing, Dean said, has been more valuable than a simple product placement relationship. “Olivier was so inspired by ‘keep walking’ because of his own journey. He’s had a very difficult journey himself. He interpreted ‘keep walking’ as ‘keep walking until you fly.’ And that’s how he spoke about it. It was just so special to be part of that with him.”

In some cases, talent will approach the brand with ideas because they want a symbiotic narrative-driving relationship. “It has to feel reciprocal and that there’s a meeting of the minds and the hearts that can build both brands forward,” he said, calling out the brand’s partnership with entertainer Sabrina Carpenter for the Man’s Best Friend album launch as an example. 

“Once you establish that, it comes back to creativity. With Sabrina, we knew how we wanted our brand to show up, and she knew very well how she wanted her brand to show up, and then we put the teams together and allowed the magic to happen.”

Balancing creative and commerce

The discussion concluded with a question from the audience about strategies for securing buy-in from in-house finance teams for such high-production, high-concept ideas.

Dean replied that though he showed a short teaser of the Carpenter campaign, their overall collaboration is a two-year program with an end-to-end plan that pulses out in waves to allow for long-term ROI, not just surface saturation.

“Any good marketer will tell you you’ve got to keep one eye on the short term and one eye on the long term,” he continued. “It’s about: How do we both bring excitement and new consumers into the brand, but also make sure that there’s a commercial runway bringing that to life?”