Why is Kendra Scott launching Yellow and partnering with national sports teams? Why does Nike need Well Collective? Why is IKEA suddenly appearing inside Best Buy? On the surface, these moves might seem scattered — legacy brands creating spin-offs, new brands seeking unexpected partnerships, everyone seemingly everywhere at once. But there’s a clear thesis behind the strategy.

Successful retailers are no longer operating solely at the point of sale. The brands demonstrating sustained growth now function across community, culture, and content. They use brick-and-mortar as expressions of identity and values. Retailers are beginning to operate with the discipline of media organizations, maintaining a consistent presence across channels and cultivating relationships that extend outside of individual purchases. Retailers are realizing that it’s less about having more brands or more locations, and more about recognizing that the industry is transitioning from managing storefronts to managing narratives.

Engaging consumers outside transactional moments has become the central challenge. With consumer attention spread across platforms, brands must meet people where they already spend time consuming popular entertainment, align with cultural figures, and maintain visibility through environmental and social commitments. The goal isn’t constant promotion but consistent presence through shared values and cultural awareness. Each new concept, partnership, or spin-off brand is really asking the same question: how do we stay visible when consumers aren’t shopping? We can already see this play out in how people are shopping. Visa reports that U.S. holiday retail spending grew more than 4% in 2025, with consumers shopping across channels and making more intentional choices.

Category Expansion as Cultural Strategy

Take Catbird, the Brooklyn jewelry brand that built its reputation on delicate, stackable pieces. Every emerging brand faces a scale challenge: how to expand without losing the intimate, curatorial approach that defines who they are. What they chose to do reveals a growing trend in modern retail strategy.

Catbird recently introduced lab-grown diamonds, responding to Millennial preferences while maintaining brand credibility. Priced from $600, the new line lowers barriers to entry just as it expands beyond Brooklyn into Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. The brand simultaneously partnered with Amazon Prime’s The Summer I Turned Pretty on a personalized jewelry collection. Through this audience-focused move, Catbird leverages entertainment channels to reach customers through stories they’re already invested in.

Anthropologie took a different path when partnering with Walmart on a value-driven product line. With price points under $100, they gain exposure to shoppers who may aspire to their aesthetic but engage at different price sensitivities. The concept debuts at Walmart’s new Northwest Arkansas campus in Bentonville, alongside Starbucks and Chipotle, as part of the big-box brand’s streetfront retail that integrates retail, dining, and outdoor spaces. Opening in spring 2026, this placement shows how some retailers are using place-based experiences to scale across income brackets while building long-term brand relationships.

Gap demonstrates yet another approach. Under its current CMO, the brand transformed its collaboration with girlband Katseye from a simple product launch into a sustained media moment. Gap treated the partnership as a storytelling engine across channels throughout the holiday season, representing how retail brands excel with marketing leadership fluent in culture, timing, and distribution. 

Kendra Scott provides a complementary leadership lens. As noted by ICSC COO Whitney Livingston, the brand — under the leadership of its CEO and Chief Creative Officer, Kendra Scott — has consistently emphasized “connection before transaction,” using physical retail as a vehicle for community, personalization, and emotional engagement. That philosophy extends into the brand’s broader strategy, including partnerships with national sports teams that place the brand inside shared cultural moments beyond traditional retail. The approach reinforces that brand growth is driven not by product alone, but by leadership that understands how experience, culture, and human connection build long-term loyalty.

Even long-established cultural institutions are rethinking distribution in response to changing audience behavior. The Academy’s decision to move the Oscars to YouTube makes the pattern unmistakable: visibility follows viewers, not tradition. Retailers can’t wait for customers to come to them. They need to show up in the entertainment people watch, the platforms they scroll, and the conversations already happening.

Speaking of conversations, this is where real estate becomes part of the narrative. Colliers works with brands to translate identity, culture, and growth strategy into physical environments that connect with consumers in meaningful ways. Connect with Colliers’ Retail Advisory team today.