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At a time of almost limitless choices, data protection laws, and the constant emergence of new cyber threats, the importance of brand credibility and reputation can’t be overstated. Through these, companies can reinforce their positioning, attract new customers, boost long-standing relationships and, ultimately, thrive against competitors.
But gaining consumers’ trust through becoming a credible, reputable brand is easier said than done, especially for smaller and younger businesses. Enter co-branding. This marketing approach may well hold the key to enhancing the credibility and reputation of brands – but what does it mean, what does it entail, and how can you put it into practice?
Keep reading to find out.
What Is Co-Branding?
As the name itself suggests, co-branding is a type of strategic collaboration that two companies establish in order to create a new product or service that carries both their names. But there’s more to names and logos involved in co-branding.
Unlike co-marketing, for example—a marketing tactic whereby two different brands combine their existing products or services to promote them, often on social media—co-branding requires the creation of a completely new offering. This, in turn, demands a much more strategic, creative, and innovative approach that often involves teams from marketing, sales, and product development.
Engaging stakeholders, with a legal agreement drawn up by a business contract attorney, are both paramount for this reason.
Free to use image sourced from Unsplash
The Benefits of Co-Branding (Done Well)
Whether as part of your broader digital transformation journey, as a way to expand your brand’s visibility, or to reach clients in a different locale, there are many reasons why you’d be wise to go down the co-branding route.
Let’s explore some of them.
It Helps You Reach New Audiences
Perhaps the most impressive benefit that comes with co-branding is the possibility of achieving much higher exposure. This, in turn, leads you to reach a wider audience, perhaps even outside the boundaries of your current locations.
Utilizing various social media tools allows brands to effectively target and engage with these broader audiences, ensuring the co-branded message is communicated across diverse platforms.
For instance, facing the challenges of a potential US TikTok ban, brands might need to reconsider which platforms can best help them maintain or expand their reach, highlighting the importance of flexible and adaptive co-branding strategies.
In this context, TikTok marketing tools have proven invaluable, offering unique capabilities for creating engaging, viral content that resonates with a younger demographic. Leveraging these tools can significantly enhance a brand’s visibility and engagement on social media.
It Can Boost Your Sales
With higher visibility and a broader audience to market to, your co-branded product or service might enable you to increase your sales. Moreover, the increased visibility and credibility gained through effective co-branding strategies can significantly generate leads, providing fresh opportunities to convert interest into tangible business growth.
This can be particularly helpful if you partner with a trusted brand that’s better known than yours, as you will be able to leverage, and sell to, its existing customer base.
It Helps You Save on Your Marketing Strategy
How many times have you had to set aside those genius ideas for a marketing campaign or product launch, because your budget simply wouldn’t stretch that far? With co-branding, these money woes will become a thing of the past, as you and your partner will be able to split all the costs required for any marketing or promotional activity.
It Enhances Your Brand Credibility and Reputation
Last but certainly not least, another crucial advantage of co-branding is its ability to boost your own brand’s credibility and reputation. Of course, for this to happen, you’ll need to know exactly which brand to team up with and what kind of product or service your joint audience will desire.
Free to use image sourced from Pexels
How to Boost Credibility and Reputation With Co-Branding: 5 Tips
Because credibility and reputation are such crucial aspects, let’s explore how co-branding helps to boost them.
1. Choose a Brand With Similar Values
It may sound obvious, but jumping into co-branding head-first and without a proper strategy will only backfire.
Yes, there might be a specific company that you dream to work with, but stop for a minute and consider the following:
- Are they (and their target audience) really aligned with your brand and values?
- Is your business capability (read this article on business capability examples for an in-depth look at the topic) going to be able to support this kind of project?
Choosing the right partner is not a walk in the park and may require time and team effort. The two most important factors to consider are:
- The other brand’s values and current product/service offering—you’ll want your partner to share similar values to yours, and to sell something that has relevance with what you’re selling, without of course overlapping with your offering and risking becoming a competitor.
- The other brand’s reputation—team up with a brand that already enjoys a positive reputation and is highly regarded by both the general public and other brands.
Also, while partnerships with local brands might feel appealing at first, don’t put yourself in any geographical limits. With technology such as global calling software, you can place – and take – an international call at any time and anywhere, literally at the touch of a button, which can enable you to communicate with foreign partners quickly and easily.
2. Remain Consistent
Consistency is another crucial building block of credibility, whether you are a social media influencer or a large corporation. This can be especially complex when two different companies combine to deliver a single product or service, as it can pose questions in terms of messaging, tone of voice, and even visual identity.
To this effect, you’ll want to do two things. First, you need to agree with your partner on what to communicate to your joint audience, and how. Will you be creating a co-branded logo, for example? Which tone of voice and messaging style will you be using?
Then, ensure that everything you have agreed on is meticulously matched across all your channels, as this will demonstrate to your customers that you are, indeed, a professional, committed, and trusted company.
3. Deliver High-Quality Products or Services
There’s little point in overhauling your entire enterprise architecture (read this if you’re wondering: what is enterprise architecture?) for the sake of a half-baked co-branded project if you’re not providing the products or services that your audience wants, needs, and loves.
The best co-branded partnerships, as we’ll soon find out, are those that contribute to the creation of something truly unique, innovative, and high-performing, delivering on the promises you made to your customers and exceeding their expectations.
Free to use image sourced from Pexels
4. Prioritize Transparency
Being open, honest, and transparent is essential to build credibility and reputation as a brand. When launching your co-branding partnership, therefore, you’ll want to be as clear as possible about what the collaboration entails, as well as what the financial arrangements are.
Because co-branding is an intra-departmental affair, you’ll also want to make sure that your entire team is aware of everything. To this effect, it’s a good idea to implement a solid and secure project management platform that every team member can access in order to store and retrieve data.
5. Communicate Clearly and Effectively
Alongside transparency, crystal-clear communication is another pillar of a successful co-branding partnership. Ensure that your goals, project scope, and limitations are all clarified before embarking on this joint venture, and keep all channels of communication with all the relevant people open whenever needed.
For example, if your social media manager chooses to leverage user-generated content for your co-branding campaign, make sure they have a simple, standardized, and shared way to communicate it to your co-branded partner, detailing how and where they’re going to publish it.
Three Great Co-Branding Examples
Need some inspiration to kick-start your co-branding journey? Look no further than these three great examples of winning co-branding strategies from some of the world’s best brands.
1. Starbucks and Spotify
One of the most popular and successful brands on the planet, Spotify is a treasure trove of innovations and creativity, from its recent redesign to its beloved data-driven playlists and collections, the music streaming platform is always sure to impress.
In the co-branding field, Spotify joined forces with Starbucks to build a “music ecosystem.” This works in a pretty simple way: Starbucks staff get access to a Spotify premium membership, which allows them to curate playlists that they can play in the shop throughout their working day.
The result? Higher exposure for Spotify (and its artists) coupled with an even more immersive, unique, and memorable coffee shop experience for Starbucks—and a boost in credibility and reputation for both.
Free to use image sourced from Unsplash
2. Unicef and Target
Unicef and Target are proof that co-branding doesn’t necessarily have to put profit at the forefront, but it can also be an effective way to do good and shine a light on issues such as diversity and inclusion, and help make the world a better place.
The Kid Power co-branding campaign, for example, was centered on Target selling fun, child-friendly, and affordable fitness trackers that encouraged the user to take part in a range of fitness activities.
The end goal? To lead kids towards choosing a healthy lifestyle while at the same time delivering food parcels to impoverished children around the world.
Through this unique and important partnership, both brands boost their credibility as companies that actively take tangible steps to improve the world we live in.
3. Nike and Apple
It would be impossible to discuss co-branding examples without mentioning one of the most successful partnerships: Apple and Nike. The connection between fitness and technology that we all know today was largely due to these two giants who, in the past 20 years, have collaborated on a number of co-branding projects.
One of the latest and most popular is Nike Run Club. What began as a simple way to connect Nike customers to Apple music during their workouts has now evolved into a much wider offering that allows Nike and Apple users to access coaching, training, and even custom bands.
This strengthens the reputation of both brands as companies that have their customers’ health and well-being top of mind.
Key Takeaways
Free to use image sourced from Unsplash
Co-branding can be an excellent way to foster a company’s credibility and reputation, as we have discussed in this article. If you are thinking about embarking on a co-branding project, make sure that you choose the right partner and that the product or service that you’re launching is of high quality.
And if you need any inspiration, hopefully, our three examples have provided you with plenty—now, it’s your time to shine through a great co-branding project!
