Lush’s Super Mario Bros collaboration is nominated for Brand Partnership of the Year at the 2026 RG Excellence Awards.
Hannah Johnston-Cree, chief marketing lead for Lush collaborations takes us behind the scenes of the partnership.
She believes that Super Mario Bros was the right property for Lush to team up with as it lead on from a previous collaboration they had done.
And for this iteration of the campaign, the retailer wanted to continue the storytelling from first collaboration. One of the ways it did this was by re-releasing its Mario and Luigi shower gels from the first collection.
Opening up the doors
One of the main reasons for its collaborations is to help the retailer to reach new audiences and introduce them to the brand.
She explains: “We will never replace beloved, legacy core products, such as Intergalactic bath bomb, Super Milk hair primer or Dream Cream body lotion, but by opening up the doors through these immersive collaborations, we hope those new customers will discover how Lush can offer even more when it comes to their self-care and daily routines, whilst leaving the world Lusher than we found it.”
“We see a lot of excitement for new collaboration launches; a lot of conversation online with suggestions, product ideas and what their dream collaboration would look, feel and smell like. It’s really fun for our team to see these pockets of chatter and passion because our team is also a community of fans, and that’s exactly what our process of building out a range entails too.”
However, Lush also wants to bring excitement to its long-term fans and it will go into its archives and draw inspiration from or bring back an old fragrance depending on what is relevant for that particular project.
She says: “Lush doesn’t cater to a specific customer type per se; instead, we aim to create products for every need. Because of this guiding strategy, we know our customer profiles are vastly different, and that’s exciting for us!”
“We see families and groups of all ages and genders entering through our shop doors, so when we get the opportunity to work on such a beloved brand that also has fans across all generations, it feels like the perfect fit for us.”
It takes into account its differing consumer basis by having a range of different products to choose from.
She says: “A lot of our collaboration partners are actively looking to partner due to a new film, song or milestone moment so these types of collaborations feel like they resonate the most with younger audiences, due to the noise and celebration online surrounding them.”
Immersive by nature
And to cater to the younger consumer base it plans a lot of physical activations. The company is immersive by nature and therefore experiential retail is “fundamental to a complete customer journey”.
It often wonders how it can extend its collaborations between its retail spaces and one way it came up with for this collaboration was by launching a immersive pop-up at the Outernet, London. Guests to the pop-up were able to practice making products at the Planet Makers Lab and play shuffleboard.
Hand and arm massages were also available across the weekend.
For its other collaborations, Lush has hosted Wicked activations at King’s Cross St Pancras, appeared at Westfield Stratford twice for its collections with Sanrio and created a Shrek swap at its former office space on Beak Street in London.
Internationally it applies a similar method, hosting pop-ups in Los Angeles, spa takeovers in New York and appeared at Comic Cons in South Africa and Dubai.
Lush also wanted its products to be on theme for the film The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and worked closely with Universal Products and Experiences. The retailer was able to see assets for the movie ahead of its release date which helped to guide product development.
She says: “We were able to identify key characters and story narratives we wanted to lean into and build out a range inspired by these. It’s a really fun challenge to try and imagine what the galaxy in Mario’s world could smell like! We hope Lush customers would agree we did a pretty good job with this brief!”
Never giving up
However, there are always a couple of products that never make it to or past the final sign off, which could be down to multiple reasons.
She says: “As a team, we try exceptionally hard to bring something new and innovative to existing Lush fans, as we never want to forget about them whilst attracting new fans through our partnerships. However, sometimes a few of our ideas are too out there!
“We’ve had feedback that some products may not be as fizzy as they’d like or expand too much or melt too quickly; some are sometimes more tricky than others to try and manage and rectify. However, we’ll never give up, and will revisit ideas if we think it’s suitable to the upcoming collaboration.”
Johnston-Cree hopes fans think that Lush does the “worlds and experiences they are so passionate about justice”. The team at the retailer are fans of the IPs themselves and relish in the opportunity to dive into the worlds they adore.
She says: “We never bring anything to customers that we aren’t passionate about. All our products are crafted with years of experience and expertise behind the scenes and we try to highlight those stories as part of our own storytelling when we launch a new range.
“One quick look at Lush’s YouTube will show you how some of our products are made, what ingredients we have used and the incredible ‘sets’ we build to showcase them. “
The brand’s mission is to “leave the world lusher than we found it” and it wants to make sure it is contributing to this. Some of the ways it does so are by handmaking all its products and ethically sourcing its ingredients. It also offers a in-house recycling service which allows consumers to bring back items (along as they are in packaging) to be recycled.
Johnston-Cree explains that its collaboration team was born when it left the major social media platforms, Meta and TikTok in 2021 (it left due to the concern over the “intentional lack” of safeguarding options for users when it came to algorithms).
The retailer didn’t want these to be the areas where it saw its customers and so it shifted strategy, employing a top-of-funnel marketing programme instead. And so in 2022 it launched its first collaboration and “the rest is history”.
Lush joins JoJo Maman Bébe, Hamleys, Lidl and many more in the Brand Partnership of the Year category at this year’s RG Excellence Awards. See the full shortlist, and all categories here. This year’s awards will be hosted at the Underglobe on 14 October 2026.
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