Brand Partnerships - Connecting Brands and Overcoming Challenges

It is no longer a secret that brands cooperate with famous faces or other brands for advertising campaigns. Especially with new emerging platforms like TikTok, dissemination through influencers is becoming increasingly important as users listen to the word of opinion leaders. Influencer marketing does not disturb and stimulates purchase, but can have different facets. More and more companies want to jump on the bandwagon of other brands' followership or fame, influencers, musicians, athletes or other famous personalities in order to land the next viral or the next big trend. Often, however, the brand's image and strategy are neglected or completely disregarded in the conception. There may be challenges in implementation as well.

This article is about why brand partnerships can be helpful, what challenges arise, and how the success of a campaign can be measured. Our guest author, Jeannine Theresa Huber, gives you an insight.

Brand Partnership Definition: What does Brand Partnership mean?

To clarify what brand partnerships actually are, we want to define the term. In brand partnerships, co-branding or the so-called brand cooperations, two or more companies or organizations cooperate, usually temporarily, to mutually benefit. Joint activities can aim at product development, brand activation and/or brand communication. Through the entered partnership, the strengths of both organizations are used and, ideally, brand awareness is increased, new markets are tapped, and additional value is given to products and/or services. This can involve advertising a completely new product and/or service or relaunching existing products/services through a joint marketing strategy.

Some of you may be wondering at this point what this has to do with influencer marketing. Influencers, musicians, etc. are long understood as brands and differ little in their marketing. They also play an increasingly important role in band partnerships.

Why can brand partnerships be useful for you and your company, and what role do influencers play?

As emerged from the definition, brand cooperations can help strengthen your brand awareness by creating additional attention for both sides. By joining forces, a completely new, own and interesting storytelling can be created (like the example GoPro and Red Bull shown below) and thus automatically generate additional attention.

Another advantage can be the tapping of entirely new markets. Especially through influencers, a completely new target group can often be reached. An example of this is the cooperation between About You and the Pangea Festival (also listed in the examples below). When fashion, music, sports, and culture fuse, different target groups and markets can be won.

Brand partnerships can increase the value and thus the image of a brand. The good image of another partner set in the minds can transfer to your own brand. If cooperation partner A is associated with quality, for example, this can transfer to brand B.

The costs and associated risk of joint partnerships can also be reduced by dividing among several partners.

All these points can be achieved through influencers. Another factor was already apparent from the introduction, because influencer marketing does not disturb and leads to sales. To name just two figures, almost 42% of those over 16 in Germany alone consume content from topic experts or personalities and are therefore heavy followers. More than 50% of them have already bought products one or more times based on recommendations from influencers. This was revealed by the special report by agof (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Onlineforschung) and the Koelnmesse. At this point, I can also highly recommend this report to you if you want to learn more about influencer marketing and follower behavior.

Source: agof facts & figures “Influencer Marketing: The Follower, The Unknown Creature”, special publication of agof and the Koelnmesse for DMEXCO 2021

What challenges are there in Brand Partnerships?

Especially with the nearly daily new viral videos on TikTok, brands often want to chase a 'hype' through brand partnerships without carefully questioning how it fits their own brand, and without a corresponding marketing strategy. One or more influencers are brought on board, shouted into the market without strategy, and in the end, the desired effect is missing. Therefore, you should ask yourself some questions in advance:

• What goal do you want to achieve for your brand with the cooperation?
• Does this goal fit your brand's image and the associated Brand Management?
• Does the goal also fit into your marketing strategy?

Once these questions have been answered, the biggest challenge in brand cooperation is at play - the choice of the right cooperation partner. This must fit the image of the brand and the goal of the campaign. The goals can vary greatly, e.g. reaching a new target group. When the appropriate partner is selected, the goal must always be kept in mind. Often, this point is forgotten in the course of the acquisition process, which can lead to the failure of the campaign.

This very acquisition process is another challenge. Should the influencers or cooperation partners be found themselves, or do you seek experts such as influencer agencies for help? With their expertise, they can often find better suitable cooperation partners, already have good contacts with managements, and are familiar with contract negotiations in this segment. They can also help to distribute the budget sensibly. Plus, they are familiar with problems such as corresponding contracts and individual negotiation points. Because often, services are expected or assumed that have not been discussed. These can then be associated with additional costs. If you're specifically looking for influencers, you can also take tools like influData to help you filter and analyze.

Other tools that can support you in brand partnerships are:

• Research Musicians:Chartmetric
• Easy Content Design Program:Canva Pro
• Content Management/Analytics: Hootsuite,Later (Focus Instagram)

Once the cooperation partners are clear, it is time for implementation. A corresponding marketing strategy is indispensable for this. Often the goals are not clearly defined, the content to be implemented was too broad or too narrow, or the content does not fit the image of the brand. Especially in collaborations, you should work out an appropriate Influencer Marketing Strategy. With the choice of goals at the beginning of a cooperation, you also choose your target group. This is often forgotten in the process. So always check whether the step is appropriate for the target group every time you are within the steps of the marketing strategy.

Another challenge can be coordination. You usually have to deal with managements with famous personalities who also take points into account for their interests. When different areas within your own company are added, miscommunication can occur. So, you should reduce your team to a few contacts who always know about every single step. In addition, you should always communicate clearly with your brand partner. Never assume knowledge, clarify individual points that you wish for the cooperation exactly.

In a brand cooperation, a lot of content is often generated that takes place on different platforms. You should therefore have the content created with a certain runtime beforehand. In order to keep track of this and also to be able to give your partners the possibility to keep track of it, you should definitely create a comprehensive Content Plan. If you are not the content creator yourself, always get it approved beforehand and make sure it will appear at the right time on the right platform. In addition, you should also check the content on the day of publication.

As the last point, scandals of a brand often left considerable damage in a brand. So currently, for example at the Fashion brand Balenciaga, which had children pose with bondage toys. Several personalities then turned away from the brand. This bad image can affect your own brand during cooperation. Therefore, when cooperating with personalities, the background should always be meticulously checked to avoid negative headlines.

What must be considered in planning & implementing brand partnerships?

Some challenges in planning and implementation have already been discussed. Important points that you can consider are:

• Check whether the brand cooperation fits the brand and the strategy.
• Find appropriate cooperation partners that fit the brand image and the desired goal to be reached.
• Perform a background check on the cooperation partner.
• Define the influencer marketing strategy and check it in every step.
• Clear and precise communication with the cooperation partners. Discuss every detail of the contract to be fulfilled.
• Discuss contents to be created with partners, create them in due time and make a content plan.

4 common reasons why brand partnerships fail

1. Too high expectations of one of the contract parties

Especially in influencer marketing, brands often have very high demands for partly low budget or presuppose services without appropriate consideration. An agreement can thus fail, additional costs arise or dissatisfaction arises on both sides.

2. No contract conclusion

This brings us directly to the next point. If not every point that is supposed to be provided by the individual parties in the cooperation is discussed, it may not lead to a contract conclusion.

But agreements are often held and the planning started without having a contract in place. This can lead to the contract partners dropping out at short notice. For example, sudden doubts can cause the cooperation to fail. With influencers, for example, another cooperation may arise that is preferred. With musicians, a release plan may change that no longer fits the cooperation plan, etc.

3. No marketing strategy

Cooperations are often undertaken based on observations of other well-functioning partnerships or due to trends, without having done a precise conception beforehand. Without pursuing a well-thought-out strategy, the success of a cooperation ultimately fails.

4. Briefing held too narrowly or too vaguely

If the scope of the cooperation to be implemented was held too tightly, the creativity and the strength of the respective partners could be too weak and the synergy effects lost. If they are held too open, a clear line and therefore the corresponding cooperation might not be recognizable.

How and what can the success of brand partnerships be measured by?

Every brand cooperation is different and aims at different goals. Therefore, it is necessary to first define these goals. These can range from reach to leads to traffic. By setting your goals, you can measure and check the success of your Influencer Marketing cooperation using key performance indicators (short KPIs).

Three successful examples of Brand Partnerships

There are now countless good examples of successful brand partnerships. I would like to introduce three to you today.

GoPro and Red Bull

Both the action camera manufacturer GoPro and the energy drink manufacturer Red Bull have established themselves as lifestyle brands that are associated with action and sports. The brand fit is clearly present here. Through the many video materials that are created by the cameras, Red Bull benefits by featuring the videos on their own platforms. The camera manufacturer, on the other hand, benefits from events joint hosted with Red Bull. For example, some events took place around the jump by Felix Baumgartner from a space capsule more than 24 miles above the Earth's surface, which was also accompanied by GoPros.

GoPro: Red Bull Stratos - The Full Story

Adidas, Paul Pogba, and MHD

The French football player Paul Pogba has designed a own "Pogba Capsule Collection" collection for the sports manufacturer Adidas. The Afro-Trap pioneer MHD provided the accompanying song. Not only was the collection very in demand, but the campaign song also quickly achieved platinum status in France, while the music video alone was viewed over 4 million times.

Paul Pogba Collection adidas ft Mhd

About You and Pangea Festival

The fashion brand About You is known for its pioneering spirit and tries to go new ways in marketing. In 2019, they brought to life cooperation with the established Pangea Festival for a novel festival concept: the About You Pangea Festival. The diverse offer consists of music, sports, culture, workshops and of course fashion. As a fashion brand, About You sets a whole new view on marketing possibilities and creates a cultural offer without trading with it primarily.

About You Pangea Festival 2021 - Aftermovie

Conclusion

Successful brand partnerships are now abundant. Due to the synergies used by two companies or organizations, a win-win situation for both sides can be created. Working together compatible brands can benefit both. The adoption of image components of another brand, the expansion of reach as well as the development of new target groups, increasing the brand value and efficient marketing investments can be advantages of a brand partnership.

However, to be successful in the venture of a brand cooperation, some challenges must be mastered and the own brand and the set goals must always be kept in view. Otherwise, frustration can arise when the desired effect does not materialize. In the worst case, a brand cooperation can cause considerable damage.