The Power of Brand Collaborations

Brand collaboration is a partnership between two or more brands in which they create an experience, product, or service to achieve the same goal and be beneficial to all their clientele. They may join on a project, campaign, or even create a collaboration product to sell to customers. This is something many major brands do, as it is a great marketing tactic, and a lot of brands align well together (with similar goals) and therefore they can create something extremely beneficial to all of their customers.

We are seeing more and more brands collab together (some in which we would never expect), and it can be a great way to share customers, ideas, resources, expertise AND get people talking. A brand collaboration could be a key marketing tactic for your business, specifically if you’re going through a lower sales period, or even a new start-up in need of some extra resources and reach of customers.

This blogpost will dive into some key information on brand collaborations and how it could benefit your business, as well as your customers…

Types of brand collaboration

1. Joint Products

The most common type of brand collaboration is joint products, and this can be a fantastic way to get customers to talk about your brand and allows you to be as creative as possible. Finding another company that you can align with allows you to tap into new markets, as well as gain exposure to broader audiences. It can be exceptional marketing when two unlikely brands work together to create something that benefits both customers, as it can give both brands a large amount of exposure.

For example, Coco Cola just worked together with Oreo to create a new Oreo flavoured drink. Whether you think this sounds nice or not, people are buying to try, and it is getting the internet talking. It is such a powerful way to get your name out there.

2. Joint Marketing Campaigns

Joint marketing campaigns involves two brands collectively making a campaign to promote their products, services, or a similar message. This could involve them doing a joint event, a social media contest or a charity campaign/ a specific message campaign. This is great for increasing brand awareness and visibility, as well as generating buzz around both audiences. A lot of brands may do this with charities that they resonate with to build awareness for causes they care about.

A good example of this was Target and UNICEF and their ‘Kid power’ campaign which encouraged customers to buy their kid-friendly fitness trackers and compete in activities to help raise money for starving children. This raises money for good causes, builds brand awareness and creates a huge buzz around products.

3. Sponsorships

Sponsorships involve brands financially supporting or endorsing another brand's event, initiative, or content. We see this largely in sports, like when football teams have a brand on their kit, or also at major music events there is usually a brand who sponsors the whole event. Sponsorships are a great way for brands to align themselves with relevant audiences, create customer experiences and reach wider audiences. It is also a wonderful way to get a large social following and reach (as customers of the event you sponsor will want to keep up to date with your content too).

By running fun and memorable events, it gives your brand a positive light and customers are likely to remember you and want to research into your brand. It is also a great way to create collaborative content, for instance, if you sponsor a sports team, you may want to create fun and engaging content with the team for both socials.

4. Content collaborations

This sort of collaboration involves brands partnering with influencers, content creators or media outlets to produce engaging and relevant content for their online community. It is important to choose influencers or other brands whose content and views align with your brand’s values to create content perfect for your brand. A lot of major companies may use relevant celebrities, but for smaller brands you can use micro influencers or anyone you feel can create great content.

A great recent example was Sabrina Carpenter and Blank Street. Sabrina partnered up with the coffee shop after releasing her new single ‘Espresso’ and spent a day serving her coffee to customers in London shops. This was a brilliant campaign that got people talking and she aligned perfectly with the brand too.

So now we know the types of collaboration, lets investigate the benefits it can have for your company…

The main benefits include:

• Audience expansion

You can reach a wider audience and potentially gain customers who never would have shopped with you before. You may gain a large amount of social following, reach, new customers, and drive sales massively. It is the best way to reach demographics you may never have reached before and can attract customers to future products and campaigns that you may run independently.

• Brand strengthening

Collaboration is the perfect way to create brand strength and reputation (if the collab goes to plan). Two like-minded brands, with good reputations, coming together can create a great positive image for both brands and even increase brand loyalty.

• Innovation

A key benefit is the innovation of both brands and the creativity that comes with the collabs. You can create unique products and services to offer to customers and stand out in your specific markets. These are usually extremely beneficial to your customers too and can create excellent value for them (therefore improving your reputation).

When two brands with different areas of expertise and ideas come together, they can create extraordinary things.

• Cost reduction

Campaigns can be extremely expensive, and if you’re a smaller business there may be very little budget for campaigns. Working with another brand can help cut these costs as there are multiple parties involved. Both brands can leverage resources and share expertise to help cut costs as much as possible.

Some key things to succeed in brand collabs

Not all brand collaborations are successful, and therefore it is key you plan carefully to ensure your campaign will work well with your customers. Some things to consider are:

• Define all your goals of the collaboration.
• Do your research into the brands to ensure they are right for your brand to collab with.
• Create unique and innovative ideas for your campaign, with lots of market research.
• Market the collab well, utilising social media and sharing the collab to the world.
• Track results constantly and always work on improving.

These are all the KEY things you must do to ensure your brand collaboration is successful. Brand collaborations are one of the most powerful strategies in modern marketing and some of the biggest (and smallest) companies are doing it in order to drive sales and build their audience. Huge names such as Barbie and Balmain, Gymshark and Surreal and Air BnB and Polly Pocket are all examples of successful brand collaborations.

This may be something your brand should consider doing in order to grow and scale your business. Start by reaching out to other brands you believe resonate with your company and start planning your brand collaboration campaigns now!

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