By Tracy Morin
Are you taking advantage of partnerships with noncompeting restaurants, influencers, nonprofits or other local businesses? If not, you’re missing out on whipping up memorable experiences—and potentially major buzz.
Get started here with a step-by-step outline of the process—gleaned from two pizzerias who have found repeated success by tapping into this creative marketing move.
Step 1: Find the Right Match
The 29-location Emmy Squared Pizza, now headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, has sought recent collaborations that “create bold and meaningful experiences,” explains Sergio Pérez, SVP and head of marketing. “Each one gave guests a new reason to visit, talk about us and experience our menu through a different lens.”
Successful collabs have included:
- Dos Hombres (by Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul): A limited-time summer menu paired smoky mezcal with summery flavors for cocktails, pizza and shareable plates.
- BERO (by Tom Holland): Exclusive pizza, burger and nonalcoholic beer kits were assembled for shipping nationwide.
- Spirits of Alchemy: A bar collab elevated the Emmy Squared beverage program with complex, herbaceous pairings that were easy to execute for bartenders.
Pérez notes that inspiration starts with customers. “We look at what they’re drinking, how they’re discovering new flavors and where culture is moving,” he says. “From there, we identify brands that share our vision of using high-quality ingredients that are crafted to elevate the food and beverage experience. We’re intentional about working with brands that help us create something differentiated. For us, a successful collaboration isn’t about clout—it’s about creating a moment worth coming in for, posting about and remembering.”
Related: How Bucky’s Pizza Topped $1 Million in Sales in Its First Year
Meanwhile, Chicago-based Giordano’s, with nearly 60 locations, has run collaborations with Buona Beef, Caruso Provisions, Weber Grill Restaurant and Rainbow Cone within its new Chi-Town Flavors collaboration series. “Our goal for this series is to celebrate the incredible and diverse range of iconic foods from Chicago,” explains Daniel Gilland, director of e-commerce. “We were looking for brands whose product could either be used in a Giordano’s deep-dish pizza (like our Italian Beef Deep Dish collaboration with Buona Beef) or makes a great complement to pizza (like quarts of Rainbow Cone ice cream shipped in the same cooler as Giordano’s pizzas).”
For Giordano’s, each collaboration has resulted from brainstorming about which “Chi-Town flavors” would bring a differentiated offering to customers, then starting a conversation with the brand to ensure the collaboration is a win-win-win—for both brands as well as the customer.
Step 2: Nail the Logistics
Plan for thorough—and numerous—conversations with any brand or individual you want to team up with. Know your goals and limitations. Giordano’s, for example, wanted to develop collaborations that create value for all parties, are operationally feasible for nationwide shipping, expand the company’s total market and help grow sales.
Because many of Giordano’s e-commerce customers are ex-Chicagoans living elsewhere who still want to enjoy the city’s foods, “we emphasize our Chicago-centricity, not just with our own pizzas but also these collaborations,” Gilland says. “An ideal collaboration is where there’s a surprise-and-delight element for the customer, while at the same time, they still feel like the partnership makes sense.”
At Emmy Squared, each collab started differently: Dos Hombres and BERO began through personal and professional relationships, while Spirits of Alchemy was born from community crowdsourcing. “In every case, what began as product placement quickly evolved into full brand experiences,” Pérez says. “We developed exclusive recipes, invested in training, launched internal contests and built campaigns that included everything from media and social to in-store activation and PR. For BERO, we even built shippable kits to extend the reach beyond our four walls.”
The biggest challenge, Pérez says, is alignment. “Excitement can fade if the details aren’t locked,” he warns. “We’ve learned to invest up-front in clear communication, cross-functional collaboration and defined brand guardrails. That keeps everything moving. We’ve also learned to simplify. If the product or message requires too much explanation, it won’t translate at scale.”
Related: How to Get 1-Star Reviews, Guaranteed: Here’s the Dumbest Thing You Can Do After a Bad Guest Experience
Step 3: Build Buzz
Marketing, of course, is key to any successful collaboration—on both sides. Giordano’s drives the launch campaigns and continued promotional efforts, but the collaboration brands also play a key role by marketing to their own audiences. Both brands spread the word through their social media, emails and websites.
At Emmy Squared, team members are “the first audience,” Pérez says. “They’re the ones telling the story, table by table, so we give them the tools and context they need to be confident. That includes product training, tasting opportunities, and background on why the collaboration matters.”
Cross-functional teams are enlisted from the start—from culinary to operations to marketing—to build a sense of ownership throughout Emmy Squared. Several general managers, for example, helped develop cocktail recipes for both the Dos Hombres and Spirits of Alchemy collabs. “That ownership shows up in how they talk about the product,” Pérez notes. “Recognition matters, too. We run contests and shout out wins to keep energy high across both front and back of house.”
Step 4: Track the Rewards
Following this outline for collaborative success, you should see positive sales results—and many more upsides. “We saw lifts across the board: Sales, transactions, website visits, email capture and social engagement all trended up,” Pérez reports. “Each campaign also brought in new followers, new media coverage, and new guests who discovered us through the collaboration. But more than metrics, these partnerships created momentum. They gave our team something to rally around and gave our guests a reason to come back.”
Gilland agrees that benefits extend far beyond the bottom line. “The consistent benefit across these collaborations is the ‘new news’ that we’re bringing to our customers and non-customers,” he says. “That’s accomplishing a couple of things: certainly driving traffic to our site to purchase the collaboration packs, but just as importantly, reminding customers of Giordano’s and staying top of mind. It might be a social media post or email about a collaboration that brings the customer to our site, but they end up purchasing something else—today or a month down the road. As we measure the success of these collaborations, we’re using a wider lens than strictly the sales of that individual collaboration.”
However, resulting sales are no slouch: Bolstered by Windy City collaborations, Giordano’s has seen “fantastic growth” in its e-commerce business, with 2024 as a record year and a new record on track for 2025. “And most of these collaborations will continue to live on our site for an extended time,” Gilland adds, “which allows us the ability to evolve the product assortment over time as we learn what resonates best with customers.”
SIDEBAR
Authentic Connections
Our experts underline the importance of authenticity for collabs that sizzle:
“Start with what your brand already does well. Then look for partners who can amplify it without compromising it. The most successful collaborations don’t feel like a reach. If a collaboration feels like a gimmick, it probably is. If it feels like a natural extension of your brand, you’re in the right place. The best collabs don’t always need to be with big brands—they need to feel authentic to your community and guest base. And don’t just look at menu fit—look for brand ethos alignment.” —Sergio Pérez, SVP and head of marketing, Emmy Squared Pizza
“Start small and pick one collaboration to learn from. Also, create a thoughtful collaboration that brings a truly unique and useful offering to the customer rather than simply looking for a collaboration with a mega brand because you think it will skyrocket sales. If the collaboration seems forced, it’s going to feel inauthentic—and that’s not helpful for either brand.” —Daniel Gilland, director of e-commerce, Giordano’s
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
