“It’s really special”: Bravado’s Damian Treece on bringing The Rolling Stones and Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team together for co-branded merch

Damian, it’s always great to catch up! We’re here to discuss the recent collaboration between the Rolling Stones and Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team on a co-branded merch collection. Why did this collaboration make sense?
The first engagement between the two brands was in November 2023 as part of the launch plans for Hackney Diamonds.

Hackney Diamonds being the most recent album from The Rolling Stones?
Exactly. The label team at Polydor worked with Aston Martin Aramco to have the Stones logo on the car for the Vegas Grand Prix. That was the first connection between the two brands. Then, you know how it goes. I’ve known the licensing guys there for a little while. You see people and have meetings at trade shows and talk about what might happen. We got together and thought about how we could take that initial piece and expand it into something that bought our two respective fandoms together.

“We’re putting two brands with an incredible foundation of super fans together and showing them something new.”

The other exciting thing about this is we’ve leveraged physical retail with the RS No. 9 store on Carnaby Street. We hosted a launch event there and it’s become a great case study for how we can and could be doing these activations in the future using RS No. 9 as a focal point.

Creatively, what makes these two brands – and their ‘looks’ – fit neatly together?
One of the inspirations around the look and feel was the work that we did with AC Milan x The Rolling Stones collaboration from two years ago. Full credit to the brand team at Aston Martin Aramco to see the vision in the creative manipulation and implementation

The design here has the Stones tongue between the two Aston Martin wings.
Yes – and it’s a big deal because to my understanding the Aston Martin logo hasn’t been manipulated in this way before. What I think was reassuring was that when it came to the creative, we have so much experience and history with pushing boundaries with the Rolling Stones logo, if you look at what we’ve done with the likes of AC Milan, Paul Smith and our upcoming Panini launch. We led on that first pass of creative and showed them some ideas – and one of those first passes is actually the finished product.

We have huge focus on developing storytelling moments and connecting with our super fans. Partnerships like this work because we’re putting two brands with an incredible foundation of super fans together and showing them something new. It’s a happy confluence of loads of ingredients coming together to make something really special.

What is the key to ensuring these kinds of big brand collaborations run smoothly and are successful?
It’s a mix of deference to the other brand and having a clear understanding of what message they’re trying to convey – and what audience they’re trying to hit. And then, have the same coming back to us from them. One of the main reasons this worked is because we had a unified vision. Both brands have millions of engaged fans and we wanted to give them all something to talk about, be proud of and physically experience.

Do you find these kinds of collaborations energize you? Does it fuel your own creativity and ideas around what to do next?
Absolutely – and I think that also goes for the wider team. I’d say this has sparked the most engagement I’ve had from the broader UMG business on a project since I’ve been here. That’s testament to how joined up the approach was.

So yeah, on a personal level it’s energising, but it’s energising as a business because it gives people something to be proud of – and that’s across the licensing & retail team through to those working in-store.

Now, Licensing Expo is just around the corner. What are your key aims and focuses for the show?
I’d say our approach this year is more personable. For us, Vegas is no longer about taking 60 half-hour meetings. It’s about spending quality time with our partners – partners who share the same vision as us and want to build projects to the level that our incredible roster of artists expects. Bravado is a champion of our artists and what they want to achieve, rather than a business that just wants to do as many licences as possible. We work closely with our artists’ management teams and label partners to make sure that ecosystem of connecting with superfans is completely joined up.

For example, one of our focus drivers at the minute is making sure that we try and do launch events with retailers with physical music integration. There’s a huge drive to make music a key part of a product & marketing launch. With the Aston Martin Aramco collaboration, we had ‘Hot Stuff’ playing in the video for the launch. It was key that we had that, rather than a generic backing track.

And there it is! Now, before we wrap up, is there a band or an artist in your portfolio that you think remains relatively untapped in licensing? One that’s full of product potential?
It’s very difficult for me to single one artist out from the hundreds that we work with, but one that I’m really excited about – showing my age and where I’m from – is The Stone Roses. We’re also now working with Richard Ashcroft, as well as with Paul McCartney and Wings. From a licensing perspective, we’re really looking to grow our British acts like The Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath and Jamiroquai in the lead up to key activity in market later this year and into next.

Terrific. Thanks Damian!