If you’re looking forward to a high-growth year ahead for your business, now could be the right time to invest in a new marketing strategy. According to SME Today, the majority of small and medium-sized business owners in the UK are optimistic about their growth prospects for 2022, meaning that many will be taking this time to invest in future growth.
Instead of temporary marketing campaigns that could have a limited impact, you should direct your brand promotion efforts to something with truly lasting results. One powerful way to do exactly that is to pursue a co-branding effort with a like-minded brand.
Of course, co-branding is about so much more than simply slapping the logo of another company on your products. Check out these stellar examples to find out how to get your co-branding just right in 2022 and beyond.
High-impact viral marketing
Sometimes, a co-branding effort does not need to involve months and years of planning. With the right brand partner, you can try out quick and low-effort collaborations designed mostly for social media. You don’t even need to create a branded product in this instance – you just need to create some viral content with your brand partner that captures people’s attention.
For this, it often makes the most sense to partner with a brand that might not seem like the most obvious partner. A stellar example of this in action comes from the breakfast cereal Weetabix and the tinned food giant Heinz.
In their hilarious viral campaign, they promoted Weetabix cereal mixed with Heinz baked beans – hardly an appetizing combination, but one that got literally hundreds of thousands of people talking about it. This is co-branding marketing done right.
Exploiting demographic overlap
One of the main benefits of co-branding is that you can exploit an overlap between your target market and the target market of another brand. It can be a hugely effective way to bring together two different groups of consumers that might have not otherwise encountered one another, despite clear shared interests and purchasing habits.
There are many great examples of this with the luxury sector, for instance. One great co-branding campaign comes from the high-end Italian designer Dolce & Gabbana, which paired up with the luxury kitchen appliance maker Smeg to produce a series of gorgeous appliances with D&G patterns and designs on them. By pooling their products and design brilliance together, these brands were able to target two distinct markets at once.
A natural product tie-in
A good co-branding campaign or product launch is often all about finding a natural tie-in for your own products and a partner that will appeal to your existing audience. If you can identify a brand that you know your audience already loves, you can collaborate with them to take your customer satisfaction to the next level.
There are countless examples of this approach in action, as it is probably the most common type of co-branding campaign out there. One frequently-used example can be found in the online casino gaming industry.
If we head to the international casino platform Betway, we can see a number of casino games that feature video game brands that we all know and love. Instead of standard casino slots, Betway includes officially branded slots from gaming empires such as Tomb Raider, to give their loyal players something they will love.
Make a statement about your product
Sometimes, a co-branding campaign can just be a way to make a powerful statement about your brand’s values and what you represent. You can partner with another brand to create unforgettable content that cements your position in the market and how you see yourself.
This process must begin with finding a brand partner with similar values as you, as well as a clear overlap in terms of your audience. To illustrate what we mean, let’s take a look at this truly epic campaign between Red Bull and GoPro.
For this viral campaign, they enlisted Austrian skydiving extraordinaire Felix Baumgartner to drink a Red Bull and skydive from a “space pod” floating 24 miles above the Earth, with a GoPro camera attached to his chest. It doesn’t get much cooler than this.
By finding a brand partner to team up with, you can double your impact with half of the resources. Consider these inspiring examples for your own co-branding strategies in 2022.