Shark Week’s Jaw-dropping Number of Partnerships

Written by: Kate Jacobsen

We’ve all heard of Shark week! It is a marketing frenzy that made history this year by tripling its number of partnerships since last year. In 2017 Shark Week partnered with nine different brands and this year their number of partnerships reached an all time record with 26 sponsors, one of the most notable being Walmart. This 30th year celebration of Shark Week was an advertising extravaganza to say the least!

Amongst the 26 partnerships, Vineyard Vines and Build-A-Bear Workshop are the most recognizable brands that went all out for Shark Week’s celebration, going as far as producing themed collections of their products. Build-A-Bear Workshop created two different products, Make-Your-Own Great White plush and a Make-Your-Own Hammerhead plush, both being a huge success at targeting the wide age range of shark lovers. Vineyard Vines made a new collection of gear, including a cool T-Shirt that featured Shark Week’s branding.  Swedish fish was also a huge contribution to Shark Week advertising, making their own advertisement, co-branded packaging and a fun app game called Swedish fish CHOMPED.

It doesn’t stop there though! SouthWest Airlines returned for another exciting year of partnering with Shark Week, making their own Shark Week fleet of five aircrafts, each having exterior artwork of different species of sharks on them and  Shark Week content onboard. Other partners included Tinder and Pledgeling that got Shark Week swimming through the marketing world. Princess Cruises teamed up with Shark Week this year in Discovery’s at SEA Program and was a huge partner, hosting themed festivities and promotions on seven different ships during their summer cruises.

There is no doubt that Shark Week goes above and beyond the surface of advertising. We can’t help but recognize that Shark Week is not just one week full of all things sharks, but also a huge marketing campaign that brands love to feed off of because it generates millions of dollars in sales. We can’t wait to see what Shark Week 2019 entails!