Co-branding is a popular marketing strategy that allows companies with the same views, priorities, and consumer markets to join forces and create a product that is twice as attractive to customers due to its special value.
For example, someone who likes Milka chocolate and Oreo cookies will buy chocolate with the addition of their favorite cookies with special pleasure. There are many successful examples of brand partnerships in the history of marketing. Each story is worth reading on its own, enjoying the good decisions and strategic moves. However, what does co-branding mean? Let’s find it out.
How does co-branding differ from co-marketing?
Co-marketing does not require partners to create a new product. They simply combine advertising efforts to show how their products fit together, like a streaming service to a car speaker or a cake to a coffee shop.
Instead, co-branding is not only joint advertising but also a joint product that combines the most substantial advantages of each of the products. Manufacturers combine not only marketing but also their capacities and resources to create an original solution that will appeal to consumers.
Popular forms of co-branding
- Combination of ingredients. In this case, the elements or components are mixed to form a new position with familiar features. A good and successful example is the combination of Milka and Oreo.
- Creation of a new product based on two already popular positions of the same company. More often than not, the parent company works with subsidiaries to improve the reputation of the business as a whole.
- The combination of local and international is most often traced in the form of cooperation between large banking organizations and local retailers. In this way, a small business gets more recognition and audience loyalty, and an international company gets an additional source of income.
So, this is an ecological way of development and advertising, where each partner receives their benefits, which are equally useful for consumers. In this way, the reputation and recognition of one brand increase the popularity of another, and it also works in the opposite direction. Such cooperation brings many benefits but requires the readiness of partners. Before creating such collaborations, each company must have a core product or a certain philosophy that appeals to people.
Co-branding Benefits
Working together on new solutions and advertising integrations benefits each of the partners. In particular, the joint partnership has mostly the following results:
- Expanding the client base of each entrepreneur and improving recognition.
- Increased sales and additional royalty income.
- Creation of unique product lines that could not have an impact without co-branding.
- Reduction of costs for marketing institutions because companies combine not only production facilities but also advertising budgets.
- The risk is evenly distributed among all participants of cooperation.
Despite the clear benefits for companies and consumers, collaborations between brands do not happen very often. Cooperation and work on a common idea are possible only if the brands act not as competitors but as a cohesive team with similar values.
