Every so often, there’s a collaboration between brands that works so well you wonder how it came about and why consumers responded so positively.
Co-branded deals, better known as brand partnerships, are marketing strategies that harness the influence of multiple companies to promote brand awareness and consumer engagement. They’re regular occurrences in the marketing space, and they’ve been great modes for success for certain brands.
Joel Lutfiyya, founder of browndogadvertising, a marketing agency offering business growth solutions, shared his insights on how co-branded deals drive consumer engagement and increased sales, the benefits for brands and how to ensure brands pair up with the right partner to get the best response.
Here are a few tokens he shared with us:
Benefits of brand partnerships
When you come across staples in marketing like branded partnerships, it only makes sense that you’d wonder why they happen and what their benefits are. After all, if they’re regularly used by brands across industries, there has to be a reason, right?
Turns out, brand partnerships can act something like simple math. Adding one brand’s platform with another, results in an even larger market for both brands to access.
“Co-branded deals are one of the best ways to increase sales and drive consumer engagement, because it gives you access to new customers, increases visibility and adds credibility to your brand,” Lutfiyya said. “When you partner with another brand, you automatically have access to their customer base.”
But the potential value doesn’t stop there. If your brand isn’t getting the reception you’d like from consumers, partnering with brands that have additional resources can help consumers find you more appealing.
“When customers see your product being used by a well-known and respected company or influential personality in your industry, they start to see your brand in a new positive light,” said Lutfiyya. “Customers will see that you're able to offer high-quality products or services and that you're able to compete with the best in the business. This can help attract new customers using social proof.”
However, not every partnership has to include brands from the same industry. Sometimes, teaming up with a company in another market can have significant benefits for everyone involved. In 2020, Oreo and the popular streetwear brand Supreme, joined forces to spread the word about their collaboration: a limited-time Oreo donned in bright red and the Supreme logo.
Oreo and Supreme leaned on scarcity marketing to drive hype around their collaboration — and it worked. The cookies, which retailed for $8 in store, had garnered so much consumer excitement by the time they dropped that they were selling for thousands of dollars on third-party websites.
Steps to orchestrating a brand partnership
Whether you’re partnering with a brand that sells similar products or not, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind when deciding if they’re the right partner for your co-branding campaign.
1. Make sure your partner speaks to a similar target audience.
This way, you can reach a new audience more easily without starting from scratch.
Launching any new campaign or product will require some sort of anticipation from the consumer base and building that excitement is much easier when you share an audience with your collaborator.
In the case of the Supreme and Oreo collaboration, there are more similarities to these brands than what meets the eye. Both brands have loyal customers, make great strides in brand consistency, and regularly deliver content that relates with their audiences. With such similar modes of operation, as well as access to additional resources, it’s clear why these two brands would partner up.
2. It's essential to make sure both brands are compatible.
This means having compatible values, missions and visions. Creating a successful partnership will be challenging if you're not on the same page from the start.
Brand cohesion is a major factor in a consumer’s receptiveness toward a product or service. A brand’s messaging, products and goals all have to align with the overall mission — and that requirement remains true when working with other brands.
You want to work with a brand that has aligning values. This way you can create content that fits well with both your brand and theirs. Creating cohesive content through collaborative means can also ensure consumers get a better understanding of what they can expect from the partnership.
3. Make sure both brands have clear goals for the partnership and that those goals are aligned.
Otherwise, measuring success and determining if the partnership was worth pursuing in the first place will be challenging.
What is it that you want from the partnership? Heightened brand awareness? Increased conversions? A larger audience? Having a clear vision of what you hope to achieve will help you decide which path you want to take.
From there, you’ll be better able to articulate any messages you want your audience to receive, such as a specific call to action or how the new campaign will benefit your customers.
No matter if you’re interested in collaborating with another brand or you’re looking to learn more about this marketing staple, understanding how brand partnerships work is helpful in figuring out what could work best for your brand.
