What are the benefits and challenges of co-branding and brand partnerships?

There's a huge shift when it comes to collaboration. And that shift in the last couple of years has seen co-branding and brand partnerships going from the B2C space to the B2B too. Here's an example. This year as a brand strategist, I joined forces on projects with 2 other brand strategists to work on client projects? The results were game changing. For the customer. And for us. We attracted more clients who saw the value in having different perspectives from 3 different strategists than just the one. Because each strategist specialised in something different within the brand space. New audiences. New learnings. New opportunities. I feel when brand names AND people in business collaborate it's a WIN WIN for all.

After 35 years of working in the retail and food industries, I can tell you from experience that every company could benefit from a second grand opening. Brands need to find creative ways to reintroduce themselves to the market and revitalize their customer relationship, not unlike a second honeymoon. Like human relationships, existing customer relationships can become stale and routine. And non-customers can regularly drive by your place every day and not notice you. Bringing another brand into the equation can help your customers see you in a new light and from a different perspective. One effective way to get this fresh look is by creating a co-branding partnership to intermingle audiences, share cultures and add a new perspective.

A great, recent brand collaboration is Tiger Woods with DJ Khaled and several other celebrities as investors in TMRW Sports, a sports media co. starting with a golf league. What is the key takeaway? Leverage. This collaboration has increased reach AND fun. Plus, an amazing pre-launch strategy where DJ Khaled led his audience on a journey of his new interest...golf!! On the contrary, a similar tactic blew up with Bud Light recently. 1. Know your audience -their values, your values & your brand partner's values 3. Communicate. Everything. Upfront. 4. Have fun with it. Get creative. 5. Be strategic. Plan. Who could you team up with that may not be directly in your same industry?

Taking an example from the communities and brands front, partnerships create mutual synergies in most of the cases. It generates an active referral base and trust factor from the partners. In my experience, identifying partners involve the first few steps to be done thoughtfully.. 1. Identifying Functional, Social, Emotional and Psychological needs of my buyer / customer 2. Identify organisations or communities serving either of the needs from step 1. 3. Do check for their customer and community member reviews. 4. Explore and Offer a partnership that creates value for both the parties. Define contours. 5. Setup a weekly / bi-weekly / monthly reviews, so that partnership doesn't go into dormant mode.

First: Expanded Audience Reach Co-branding provides access to tap into a partner’s existing customer base. It allows you to reach consumers who may not have previously heard of your brand and exposes them to new demographics and markets covered by the partner brand but not by your brand alone. Second: Increased Brand Awareness Increase in overall brand awareness and recognition. Consumers often take notice when two well-known brands team up. It sparks buzz.

We just did a project with Post Malone and Raising Cane's. Both sides have a great brand with solid customer loyalty, but the idea to do something fun and co-branded worked out great. It allows each side to do something off of their normal path and expand the reach of both brands.

Brands often try to tell their world how great they are, how cool they are, and how connected to the issues that are of primary concern to their target audiences. But self-promotion doesn't compare to having another culturally relevant brand say your brand is cool, vouch for your cultural relevancy, and endorse your brand. While cobranding projects allow multiple audiences to cross over and intermingle, the bigger benefit of these partnerships is sharing, borrowing, and leveraging each other's brand meaning, authority, credibility, and expertise. When looking for brand partnerships, we study the aspects we wish our client's brand had but are not getting credit for, and then find the right brand partners to help our clients garner them.

Enhanced Credibility and Trust The friend of my friend is my friend. Consumers often associate a company with the positive traits and attributes of their partner brand. They may think, "Well, I like Brand A, so if they're working with Brand B, then Brand B must be good too."

The biggest challenge to established retail and food brands is increasing shopping trips, usage occasions, product experimentation, and average basket size purchases. Once customers get established into a regular shopping routine and pattern, it can be hard to get them to consider other uses and purchase occasions. However, cobranding opportunities help customers experiment more and try new ideas out. Better yet, cobranded partnerships increase the foot traffic of existing and new customers that may not be familiar with the brand or specific product categories. By sharing costs and resources, cobranding partnerships allow our clients to save on expenses for back-of-house issues and reduce labor, warehouse, utilities, and service costs.

It also allows both partnering brands to split key costs like marketing expenses and production resources. It also lets companies combine their unique strengths, expertise, and capabilities to create a new important market discovery.

If a brand is successful, it will have many suitors requesting to do cobranded partnerships. Some companies can't resist pursuing all opportunities under the theory that any growth is good growth. But many brands can weaken, tarnish and water down the brilliance of the brand meaning by associating with the wrong partners the contradict the values and beliefs of not only the brand, but the customers. Instead of taking any and all requests to partner, we suggest our client proactively target companies that have a close fit to their brand territory and values, but can add some unique feature, aspect, or audience appeal to their brand.

Before picking up the phone and randomly asking any and every brand to collaborate, there are several key factors to consider. - Shared Values and Brand Positioning First, the partner brands should share similar values, ethics, and brand positioning. This helps present a unified and consistent brand image to customers. - Complementary Brand Strengths Second, the ideal partners will have core strengths and competencies that complement rather than directly compete. For example, you are unlikely to see bottled water companies partnering as their products directly compete with each other. Instead, it would make more sense for a bottled water company to partner with a gym or a health food brand to promote healthy living and hydration.

The opportunities to cobrand are plentiful, but managers must ask themselves upfront, "Who makes who look good in this partnership?" More often than not, it's one-sided. It's common for us to see an old, established brand want to borrow on the hip, progressive, and pioneering meaning and equity of a new brand. New brands often feel flattered to have these opportunities. However, when they move forward with these complex deals, they often find they have made the old brand a little cooler but diluted the distinctive value of their brand. This happens frequently in the consumer world, with Nestle buying Blue Bottle or Walmart buying Bonobos. Who made who look good in these deals? Not the consumer who wanted the differentiation of a startup.

Appeal to Shared Target Markets This might just be the hardest part to get right. Both partner brands should appeal to and attract each other's existing core customer bases while also expanding reach to expose the partnership to new audiences. Otherwise, the partnership risks limiting reach rather than expanding scope. So, you have to stay within your lane while also branching out.

Most brand partnerships start their dating and honeymoon phase with excitement, enthusiasm, and idealism. But with any new endeavor, some unexpected issues, concerns, and rubs often arise and can upset one or both parties. These issues often revolve around the distribution of costs, labor, maintenance, workload, marketing, revenue, and who gets the credit. Ironically enough, the biggest disputes between partners are usually not when things fail but when the collaboration is super successful. Why is this? Sad to say, ego, greed, and arrogance frequently come with success. Therefore, we recommend that our clients closely examine their potential partner's values, maturity, and litigiousness before establishing a co-branded partnership.