• by Danielle Oster , November 16, 2023

Hidden Valley Ranch’s new “collaboration” is all about brand self-love.

Today, Hidden Valley Ranch announced a new brand collaboration with … Hidden Valley Ranch. The limited-edition release promises “double the herbs, double the spices, double the flavor,” which the launch accomplishes with “double the bottles.”

Dubbed “Double Ranch,” the limited-edition product is, essentially, two bottles of ranch fused together in a kind of “X” pattern alluding to the “x” ubiquitous in cross-branded limited-edition product drops.

The brand is making 222 bottles (or double bottles, so 444 bottles total? Math isn’t our strong suit) available for purchase as part of a package which also contains a double ramekin for dipping, and a reversible bucket hat which the brand says can be used “for donning or dunking.”

Hidden Ranch is debuting the release at ComplexCon (a pop-culture event known as “the festival of the future”) on Nov. 18 in Long Beach, California., and making the launch available through a special Snapchat lens, or through a dedicated landing page for those without Snapchat.

If not for Hidden Valley Ranch’s own recent marketing history, it might be easy to read the stunt as parodying the ubiquity of such cross-brand partnerships.

But The Clorox-owned brand recently collaborated with Top Chef champion Stephanie Izard’s This Little Goat brand to launch Ranch Chili Crunch, and partnered last year with truffle-product brand TRUFF to release a sauce combining Original Black Truffle Hot Sauce and Hidden Valley Ranch. It has also engaged in some further afield, odd-couple mashups, including teaming up with Van Leeuwen this year for a Hidden Valley Ranch-flavored ice cream, and with Crocs for a Hidden Valley Ranch x Crocs footwear release in 2021.

It’s unclear if the brand may pursue similar self-collaborations in the future. Given Hidden Valley's ownership by the Clorox Company -- which also controls such brands as Burt’s Bees, KC Masterpiece, and Fresh Step cat litter -- there are certainly opportunities for some unusual combinations among the Clorox roster should the brand seek out some kind of middle ground.