Brand Collaborations – Success by the right Brand Partnership
Brand partnerships have always been an integral part of the marketing toolbox. Today, however, they are becoming increasingly important, which has been evident to everyone at least since the successes of Supreme or Off White. In the best case, a well-made brand collaboration enables both partners to smartly and efficiently expand their respective market positions while optimizing costs.
What is a Brand Partnership?
Brand partnerships are defined as a strategic alliance between two or more brands in order to offer unique and specific products or services together on the market. Whether co-branding, affiliate marketing, cross-selling or classic co-marketing – brand collaborations can enable the cooperation partners to achieve a win-win situation in a variety of ways. Because in constantly changing markets with consumers panting for the next trend, entrepreneurs have to dare to break new ground in order to remain competitive. Brand collaborations are a very smart way of securing attention on the one hand and simply expanding your product range on the other – provided the alliance is coherent.
WIN-WIN Situation
What are the strengths of your brand, which brand values of the collaboration partner can you benefit from, where can the collaboration partner benefit from you and in which areas do you complement each other? A precise analysis of the current situation is the basis for a successful brand collaboration. Because in the best case, there should be a win-win situation for both sides. And in reality, only those are sustainably successful. Cooperation requires a balance of power.
Advantages of a Brand Collaboration
Through a smart cooperation, the brand’s image can be sustainably enhanced and the customer base can be expanded permanently. Show new facets and the courage to develop yourself further in order to make your brand more diverse. For a company it is vital to keep up with the times and to adapt to the constantly changing market. However, without becoming arbitrary or even touching the brand essence.
A brand collaboration is therefore a very popular means of developing and testing new brand values - without getting down to the nitty-gritty and thus carrying out dangerous experiments with and on your own brand. The consumer understands that it is a brand partnership and not a brand marriage. In the best case, he honors it – in the worst case, he ignores it. In no case, however, can even a halfway thought-out brand collaboration lead to a loss of target group or even endanger the brand itself.
Brand partnerships can set buying impulses, develop new target groups, enhance the image and, in the best case, even save costs. But it is still not entirely without any risks. In order to avoid negative impulses and, in the worst case, invest a lot of budget in the wrong direction, you should consider some important parameters when choosing a brand for your collaboration.
The Secret of a good Brand Partnership
A look at well-known brand collaborations shows that there should, or rather, must not be set any limits to your imagination. Because innovation and creativity are required. A really good collaboration depends on the friction between the two brands – like a young love, the collaboration has to be exciting, new and unexpected. It has to conjure up butterflies in the consumer’s stomach in the truest sense of the word. And this only works if the collaboration hits the consumer unexpectedly and generates absolutely tremendous vibrations.
In their search for a brand partner, many companies look for a brand that is as similar as possible to themselves. I.e. Instead of looking for the spectacularly unknown and new, they search for the known and pleasing – and mostly find it. This therefore often creates a list of brand partners who could also be referred to as the “usual suspects”. And at this point, most of the brand partnerships have already died. Because instead of a collaboration that attracts attention, there often is a partnership that only creates a pleasant brand agreement. That is why we repeatedly appeal to our customers to boldly break new and unknown paths in their search for brand partnerships. Your main focus should always be on considering the most unexpected constellations and collaborations possible.
Before you approach it for the first time, think through how the product to be launched together with the brand partner will be accepted by the consumer in the market. If you have the feeling that the product is too pleasing and that your existing customers would expect it – cross this brand partner off your list.
Define exactly the Goals of your Brand Partnership
First of all, you have to be very clearly aware of your goals: Would you like to enter new markets, expand your expertise or use the sales channels of your collaboration partner? Do you focus on enhancing your image, expanding your target group or are you pursuing completely different goals? The more precisely you define your goals, the easier it will be to find the right brand partner.
No things by halves
Always be aware that we are not looking for the expected or the usual, but the new and unexpected. So be open to unconventional ideas and collaborations – because only those who dare can win. This phrase is more true for brand collaborations than any other discipline in marketing. Because there is no such thing as a half-good or almost good collaboration. Either you did your job really well and created an extraordinary collaboration, or you drowned in arbitrariness and did a lot of work without being honored by the customers. In brand collaborations, light and shadow are closer together than anywhere else in marketing. And all honor and prestige are due to the brave ones. Everyone else should be told at this point that there isn’t too much to lose, because in the worst case no one will notice that you have put a lot of effort into a brand collaboration. So: be brave and go unconventional. Because only those who leave their traditional paths and really get involved in new things can create a brand partnership that customers do not expect.
he most important goal of any brand partnership is to create and launch an unexpected product or service that your customer does not even begin to expect and that catches him or her completely cold. The seemingly unlikely partnerships are often the best.
A Partnership at Eye Level
It is important that both brands benefit from the collaboration. Otherwise, the desired partner will not want to commit to you. So don’t just ask yourself what you hope for from the collaboration, but also what you can offer to your counterpart. A brand partnership is only possible with the prospect of a win-win situation. When choosing a collaboration partner, carefully weigh up the benefits and risks that may arise.
Common Values
A common set of values with your potential brand partner is particularly important. Because of course not every media-effective attention is also in your interest. The desired brand alliance should be checked to ensure that it does not convey any harmful brand attributes or even damage your image.
Well-known collaborations such as Versace and H&M show that even a brand with a high-quality image that specializes in a high-income group of customers can work successfully with a brand with a sales strategy suitable for the masses. In this case, H&M benefited from the image of the Italian fashion label and Versace from H&M’s large customer base. A modern variant of this is, for example, the collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Supreme.
A high-class brand that lives from its high quality and prestige must of course not lose its reputation and its core clientele. The balancing act between possible negative effects such as loss of time and money and the advantage of a collaboration that reaches a completely new target group must be carefully analyzed and carried out with skill.
For brands that share common values and goals, complement each other and have enough imagination to think about a unique cooperation, a strategic brand collaboration can open up a unique win-win situation.
We Help you Achieve a Successful Brand Parnership!
ALPHA POOL supports you on your way to a successful and unique brand partnership that is tailored to your wishes and needs. With our various tools, we determine the most suitable brands and find the right partner for your brand collaboration from this hotlist. Our proven system leads you step by step from the complete list of all possible brands to the hotlist and through the acquisition process to the final collaboration partner. ALPHA POOL is your full-service provider for the entire process of the search, acquisition and implementation of a brand partnership.
All of our Services – with Guaranteed Results
We give you a guarantee of success for every step up to the successful conclusion of a brand partnership and even link our fee to this promise.
