By now, it should be abundantly clear that we're obsessed with campaigns related to space or the sky. Simply put, anything involving these things has us hooked: clouds, aliens, UFOs, the color silver, galaxies, the moon... you name it.
If you're confused, we recommend reading our article from Wednesday discussing Summer Fridays' OOH play at LAX and JFK. We interviewed their VP of Marketing, Blair Badge, who spilled all the details on this campaign. Not convinced? It’s hands down our favorite OOH campaign of the year so far:
While you're at it, you should also read our chat with Steven Vigilante, Head of Growth at Olipop, about their buzzy pop-up at the Nationals Game last weekend. (We might be biased, but we think this has been our best week of content yet.)
Now, back to Summer Fridays. They took us to the airport, but now it's time for some travel. It's been hard to keep quiet about this partnership all week, but we’re finally going to dive into all the details. *Drum roll please!* We’re talking about the viral BÉIS and Lonely Ghost collaboration:
For some context, it all started on April Fools' Day when BÉIS posted the middle image above. The concept of "Lonély Air" was genius. First off, these two brands have very different areas of expertise, yet they share a similar audience. Partnering with each other enabled them both to gain exposure to new, yet highly relevant, consumers. Smart. Secondly, they each individually have a lot of clout, exacerbated by their very notable founders (Shay Mitchell and Indy Blue), making their joining of forces that much more attention-grabbing. Lastly, this idea of an airline expansion was honestly believable for BÉIS. Given their brand equity in the travel space, and having a founder like Shay Mitchell, the idea of a new airline didn’t actually feel so out of the realm of possibilities. Honestly, they could single-handedly revive any dying airline. The only thing that would make us excited to travel with Ryanair or Spirit Airlines would be if they collaborated with BÉIS. Just saying!
A couple of days after April Fools', they announced the two would actually be partnering, not on a new airline, but a different collaboration. This week, they dropped their "Text Me When You Land" collection featuring a very wide array of products:
There's something for everyone, a combination of what each brand individually excels at: apparel for Lonely Ghost and travel luggage and accessories for BÉIS. In classic PEOPLE BRANDS AND THINGS spirit, we needed the inside scoop on this collaboration. But, we couldn't reach out to just anyone; it had to be someone extra special.
One member of the BÉIS team who has caught our attention is Sydney Thomas. She works on their marketing team and is regularly featured on their social page. Apart from being one of the "faces" of the brand, we've been intrigued by her role managing events and partnerships, including the BÉIS car wash activation among others:
In our opinion, the work Sydney is doing exemplifies why they're excelling in their category: they consistently create experiences - through partnerships and real-life moments - that are authentic to their brand yet also feel culturally relevant. Their partnership with Lonely Ghost is a prime example of that.
All of this is to say that we reached out to Sydney to answer some questions, and she graciously agreed! Here’s everything she shared about her role at BÉIS, their partnerships strategy, and how the Lonely Ghost collaboration came to be. Of course, we had to ask Sydney about Shay Mitchell's role within the brand, and her response might surprise you. Let's dive in:
PEOPLE BRANDS AND THINGS: Please introduce yourself and your role at BÉIS!
Sydney Thomas: Hi! My name is Sydney, and I am the Sr. Brand Marketing Manager at BÉIS. I’ve been with the brand for almost 1.5 years, and I sit under our SVP of Brand & Creative on the Brand Marketing Team. As most of us do, I wear many hats on the team but my main focus is leading all things partnerships, collaborations, and brand activations. Two days on the job never quite look the same — and I love it that way! From setting and tracking goals to navigating all partnership convos and coordinating the logistics behind our IRL experiences, this role is really about bringing the full BÉIS experience to life for our community.
PBT: What is BÉIS’ strategy for partnerships, in regards to both creators and brands?
ST: Growth, newness, and authenticity! These values are our true north star when it comes to partnerships of all kinds. While our creator strategy is led by our amazing influencer manager, we as a team are always looking for people who authentically engage with our brand and genuinely use and love the product. BÉIS is about creating bags that truly work for real life, and we love seeing when people are already sharing about the ways our products make their lives easier — because that’s the story we always hope to tell!
From a brand partnerships perspective, we work with so many incredible brand partners and it’s one of my favorite parts about this job! Our brand partnership strategy is split into two buckets: brands we partner with from a product perspective (i.e. the Lonely Ghost collaboration) and brands we partner with on a more evergreen basis (usually surrounding events, social collaborations, activations, etc.).
From a product perspective, we start by thinking about what we can make that’s new, surprising, and genuinely useful. With that, we look for like-minded partners that align with the storytelling and mission of a collection, have highly engaged and authentic communities, and want to embrace being playful. It’s no secret that there are a plethora of brand-to-brand collabs going on across industries, and our goal is always to push the boundaries of the travel and lifestyle space, create products that genuinely help people in their day-to-day, and ultimately just tell a story that means something.
At BÉIS, we really try to lean into the realness of travel (not just the glamorous “wanderlust” aspects) because at the end of the day, it’s the little moments in life that connect us. We love the magic that happens when we work with incredible brands and creators to connect and empower our communities!
PBT: We’d love to hear more about the Lonely Ghost collaboration. How was this partnership born and why Lonély Air?
ST: Think about the first message you send at the end of the flight. Almost always, it’s that “text me when you land” line, and that’s where this collection started. Now, this collaboration was in the works even before I joined the company, which I hope sheds a little light on how long it truly takes to launch a collection like this.
At the beginning, we reached out to Lonely Ghost and were delighted to hear that they already wanted to create a collection around the same idea of those little universal moments of travel. The LG team pitched us on the “Lonély Air” concept and the idea of shooting at the iconic TWA hotel, and we were immediately hooked. As a travel brand, it just made perfect sense to us and we knew our consumer would love all of the pieces we started to dream up together. We noticed the collection was dropping around April Fools Day and in true BÉIS fashion, we had to make it a little joke that we were launching an actual airline — we love the fact that our community was totally down for it!
It’s been amazing working with the Lonely Ghost team, and I’m so happy that everyone is finally seeing all of the hard work that has been put into this. One of my first calls when onboarding with BÉIS was discussing this collab, so it’s beautifully full circle to finally see this collection out in the world and getting so much love!
PBT: It's really refreshing to see Shay so involved in the brand. Can you speak more to this and share something people would be surprised to know about her role?
ST: I find it so funny that one of the first things people ask when they find out I work for BÉIS is, “how involved is Shay really?” I cannot stress enough how involved Shay is — she’s in our brainstorms, she’s approving messaging and assets, she’s constantly sending voice notes with creative ideas she’s having. This brand means the world to her, and while she trusts the team completely in executing, she really does drive everything from product to creative. She styles on shoots, she develops moodboards for our activations, and (up until this year when we opened up our first office), she hosted design meetings from her house!
Maybe this is surprising to people because of how easy it is to slap your name on something these days, but Shay’s involved in the nitty-gritty and embodies the BÉIS team ethos that no task is too small. She’s creeping on TikToks late at night, sharing feedback, and empowering everyone who works for her to always produce our best work. She’s a true businesswoman and entrepreneur, and there’s really nothing you see publicly that Shay doesn’t have a role in — and we love it that way! She’s always thinking ahead and constantly surprises us with big ideas… Shay has eyes and ears everywhere! We’re so lucky to have her.