Lessons in Partnership Marketing From High-Profile Collabs
When brands join forces in a marketing partnership, they can add value for consumers, engage existing users, and gain access to new audiences. And the digital barriers to entry are so low that it’s possible for brands of any size, shares, Alex Song is the CEO and co-founder of DojoMojo.
As the sharing economy continues to disrupt consumer expectations, brands must look beyond traditional paid channels to develop marketing partnerships. Fortunately, the evolving digital landscape, coupled with the emerging possibilities of digital brand experiences, offer myriad opportunities to do just that.
We saw this in action when Rise Brewing Co. launched partnerships with USA Surfing and USA Climbing to spread its gospel of nitro cold-brew coffee to a common audience. With cold-brew products accounting for more than half of new ready-made coffee beverages in the U.S. in 2017, Rise Brewing found a way to stand out in an increasingly crowded market.
Rise Brewing’s alliance with these Olympic sports demonstrate how partnerships can be leveraged to engage consumers. The new campaigns allow the company to tap into existing fan bases of extreme sports, but they also give USA Surfing and USA Climbing a chance to ride the coattails of a popular coffee movement.
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This kind of partnership marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways for brands to reach new audiences. In addition, the digital barriers to entry are so low that it’s an avenue available to brands of any size.
Rise Brewing and its extreme-sports partners aren’t the first to recognize the advantages of collaboration, though. Airbnb, in its eternal quest to disrupt the hotel industry, inked a deal with the cloud-based distribution platform SiteMinder last year. That partnership was designed to introduce Airbnb services to even more of the hotel industry’s market share while giving SiteMinder an inside track to list on Airbnb.
Other unicorn startups have found similar opportunities. Uber and Spotify forged a partnership that lets Uber riders stream their favorite playlists in the cars of participating drivers. Spotify gets a chunk of the radio-dominated car listening market, Uber further personalizes its rides, and customers win on both fronts.
Finding Common Ground
Brands that find common ground can amplify the effectiveness of their marketing while spending less. Spotify and Uber gained easy access to each other’s audiences in the same way that Airbnb and SiteMinder do. It’s a fast-track marketing strategy that helps rising brands stand out in a crowded digital landscape.
The riskiest aspect of partnership marketing is finding the right partner, as Spotify learned when scandals at Uber threatened to tarnish the streaming service’s reputation. High-profile collaborations like these offer examples of how to make partnerships work — as well as what to avoid.
1. Choose a partner with potential.
Not every brand partnership makes sense. The best alliances are between brands with similar audiences but relatively little overlap. From this perspective, Airbnb and SiteMinder are ideal partners: Even though both operate in the travel industry and create better user experiences through tech, they target slightly different markets. SiteMinder supports hotel inventory, and it can fill more of that inventory with help from Airbnb. Meanwhile, Airbnb books more rooms and shows the hotel industry that it can be a valuable partner rather than an intimidating threat.
2. Add value for customers.
Think about how you can improve the customer experience for your target audience by collaborating with another company. What do your brands have in common? What value do they offer, and how could those offerings combine to enhance both brands? Uber and Spotify make sense together, for example, because each adds value to the other in the context of the combination. Consumers barely have to move their thumbs on their smartphones to get the most from the experience the brands designed. Partnerships are the most valuable when they improve the customer experience for a target audience. This is particularly true when digital customer interactions are enhanced.
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3. Prioritize trust and transparency.
Partnership marketing makes a big difference without a significant investment. But if audiences don’t trust the parties involved, they won’t engage with either of the participating brands — and association with one could hurt the other. As successful as the Spotify-Uber partnership has been, Spotify almost bailed when Uber dealt with scandals in 2017. The two companies have managed to work things out, but Spotify could easily have jettisoned the relationship had Uber failed to address its issues.
When brands join forces, they can add value for consumers, engage existing users, and gain access to new audiences in a low- to no-cost venture. Brands looking to stand out from the crowd can reach new audiences and impress current ones by finding partners who have similar goals.
