Philosophy of Co-branding

Sun lei

 Sun Lei is the president of Revo Branding Communications

Group, an internal experienced brand expert.

 Revo Branding Communications Group was founded by the

internal experienced brand expert Sun Lei. Phoenix PR, May
Entertainment and Macro Interactive are our three subsidiary
brands. With dedication to the field of auto industry, fashion
and entertainment, it takes revolutionary brands theory such
as brand blueprint system, UBL (Unique Brand Language)
and brand symphony communication as the tool to adopt
innovative consulting service, integrates international
standards to commit to using excellent full-communication
products such as Creativity, PR (public relations),
Experience and Interaction communications products to help
a brand grow to achieve a leadership status
 You are welcome to discuss your ideas and express your
opinions with the author.
E-mail: Lei.sun@revobranding.com
www.revobranding.com

When you see the appearance of Minicooper designed by Versace, do you feel

like you are admiring a piece of fashionable clothes, a flashy car, or a piece of

artwork? When we step into MacDonald’s, we would like to satisfy the kid’s belly with

the happy meal, and do we also want to adore the kids by the Nimo toy coming with

the meal? When Lenovo uses the pattern of Olympic 5 rings to be the most eye-

striking symbol on its laptops, do we have a further impression of the

internationalization of Lenovo?

“Better is alone than in ill company” has always been the principle of traditional

marketing. However, when the old mode is broken, the brand cooperation

phenomenon of co-branding between strong parities and weak parities relying on

strong ones are becoming the trend. There are numerous cases of more than two

brands uniting to complete a marketing activity. Seen from the perspective of brand,

strategic alliance of brands from different industries is a special form of Co-branding.

Actually, further understanding of strategic brand alliance of different industries

should be carried through starting from the higher level, namely Co-branding, and

then to understand its hidden disciplines and the best operation practices.

What is Co-branding?

During a Co-branding, both or all cooperation parties invest in their resources

respectively. These resources must contain, but not be limited to their own brand

assets. The whole process of Co-branding is such a process that all parties put in

their resources, especially brand resources, through the optimization of all resources

to achieve each party’s marketing and operational goals. The purpose of Co-

branding is nothing but to enhance the effect of brand promotion and to ultimately

increase the sales volume of the product. (See Picture 1)

 Co-Branding

Brand A Brand B

Picture 1

•Individual: Jackie Chen •Product: Jetta

•Indication: •Company: Volkswagen

Snoopy
•
Event: Olympic, Super
Girls •Technology, Patent:
Quattro of Audi Internal
External •Geographical: Swiss
•Entrepreneur: Pan Shiyi
Watches, German Cars

•Brand Resources of •Indication: Michelin

Other companies

Picture 2

Common Co-branding modes are as followings (See Picture 2):

1. Celebrity Endorsement: awareness and recognition of celebrities themselves

are connected with their names and portraits. In fact, a company bringing in

celebrities is to obtain Individual Brand Endorsement through purchasing the

names and portraits of the celebrities. Therefore, connection between the

Individual Brand of celebrities and Product Brand of companies can be

achieved.
 2. Sponsorship to events and competitions: for example, there is a national

high school basketball league match. If there are few participants of the

activity, and the match is of little awareness among the public, it is believed

that there wouldn’t be any better reason to get sponsorship and support from

a company other than its growing potential. On the contrary, the competition

for partnership with Olympics among Volkswagen, Bank of China and CNC,

is for gaining the most public attention, to enhance its leading brand position,

to obtain more positive Brand Association and to acquire the unique

Olympic-related resources in the industry.

3. Co-branding among companies: this is mainly the complementation of

competitive resources. All the related parties provide funds, channels,

products and accesses to the brand equally in order to satisfy their marketing

and operational needs respectively. If Disney allows Macdonald’s to operate

in Disney Lands, Macdonald’s should actually turn their millions of

restaurants into the best promotional channel for Disney movies.

Till now, the definition and modes of Co-branding have been clarified. Then,

what are disciplines of all brands in Co-branding? In a specific brand cooperation,

what is the unique advantage of Co-branding? What guiding meanings do these

theories have to an actual operation of Co-branding? Let’s use the example of the

Olympic marketing of Swiss watchmaker Omega to illuminate the deeper meaning of

Co-branding.

Principals of Co-branding

The Olympic marketing of Omega belongs to “sponsorship to events” mode of Co-

branding. The Olympic Games obtains high-quality timekeeping service, and Omega

receives good brand promotion effect. From the points of view of brand specialists,

the Olympic marketing of Omega is a perfect example of Co-branding theory.

Through the research of this case, we have discovered that:

1. The more popular the brands which participate in Co-branding are, the bigger

influence the co-branding will get. Moreover, appropriate Co-branding brings

more profit than cost to the brands in the co-branding.

“Omega+Olympics” is definitely a combination that can arouse profound

admiration. When the slogan that “Omega is designated to be the only official

timekeeper for Beijing Olympics” appeared at the media, and when the logo

“Ω” on the track filled with passion showed in the camera, it is believed that

the vigor of Co-branding has virtually been permeated to all audiences. No

doubt, the effect of superposition of high quality with high quality surpasses

the shock of a single brand to the public in a large extent. The Olympic

Games promotes its accurate and equal quality through Omega, and Omega

acquires global recognition and awareness through the Olympics. The

outcome is, besides appreciating glaring sports, people feel the dazzling

lights of the alliance between strong parties and shows more trust to each

brand’s quality and strength.

2. In the process of Co-branding, the brand with better brand influence will have

more promotional effect upon other brands.

Although Omega has already been considered as an outstanding brand in

watch manufacturing industry, it is still a luxury brand with relatively narrow

audience. Its influence is far from profound or wide enough comparing to a

 worldwide sports event. Therefore, the authority and attention of the Olympic

Games help Omega to become the miracle in luxury goods. With a 60% of

brand recognition, Omega has led all the other luxury goods brands by a

large scale.

3. Whether Brand A and Brand B match will influence people’s judge to a co-

branding as well. Close connection of products is the core and basis of the

extension of brand meaning. Therefore, brand correspondency of all brands

in a co-branding is very important.

“Being the timekeeper for the Olympics!” From the point of product attribute,

Omega has certainly accurately found its matching point with the Olympic

Games. Timekeeping is an indispensable measurement in sports events.

Being the sports event with most attention from the world, the Olympic

Games are in a more need of accurate timekeeper to reflect its high level

professional and equality. This means becoming the brand that provides the

timekeeping service to the Olympics, it must have the best quality in the

world. The manufacture that seizes this matching point must be undefeatable.

Christophe Berthaud, Omega’s Global Olympics Chief Executive, said “Being

the timekeeper for the Olympic Games transfers the concept of being reliable

and accurate. Reliability and accuracy are also the qualities of watches. We

just need to pass this message to the consumers.”

Moreover, on the basis of brand connection, the deep association of culture,

style, spirit and scale of brands, should be considered in a co-branding as

well. There is no doubt that both the Olympic Games and Omega hold the

authority in their own fields. They both have a long history and are filled with

cultural ambience. They both enjoy full attention and wide recognition, and
 occupy monopolistic advantages in their industries as well. Just because

Omega was sure of its natural association with the Olympic Games, although

there were small twists and turns in the process of sponsoring the Games, it

still persisted to its judgment and did not halt on the way of profiting from the

Olympics.

As stated above, the mutual choice between Omega and the Olympic Games

is in accordance to the identity and quality of each brand. Therefore, the co-

branding is extremely harmonious and can benefit both brands. In

comparison, the cooperation between Armani and Sumsang and the one

between Swarovski and TCL Computer are not so wise. Although Sumsang

and TCL intended to promote themselves through those world famous luxury

goods brands, people still were not in favor of their cooperation. It is

considered that Sumsang and TCL have claimed ties of kinship with brands in

a higher position, while Armani and Swarovski have lowered their tastes and

ranks to condescend with lower level brands. Therefore, in a Co-branding, it

is crucial to choose a right partner.

4. Different attributes of products from different brands can normally bring

complementary effect to brand impression.

As mentioned above, in a co-branding, the connection of product, style and

culture between brands are essential. Normally different attributes of products

from different brands can bring complementary effect to the brand impression.

If we scan the cooperation between Omega and the Olympic Games from

another angle, we will find that association with sports has exteriorized some

low-pitched qualities of Omega. Watchmaker industry has always given

people the impression of “being conservative and careful”, while the Olympics

are full of passion and sweat. This passes to the public the “Sports Attribute”
 of changeling oneself of Omega through the imperturbable brand image. In

the 70 years of serving as the timekeeper for the Olympic Games, Omega

timekeeping equipments have increased the accuracy from 1/5 seconds, to

1/10 seconds, 1/20 seconds and to the present 1/1000 seconds, and it

provides new competition timekeeping equipments for almost every Olympic.

Same as the wonderment and joyous of every new record of the Olympics,

Omega shows the world its brand spirit of “challenging oneself and keeping

on innovating” through the refresh of its accuracy while timekeeping for the

Olympics. The close connection with the Games makes Omega achieve the

maximum exteriorization of its internal vivid spirit. Besides, the sports spirit of

the Olympic Games is “Higher, Faster, and Stronger”. The spirit of Omega

and the Olympics brings out the best in each other and enjoys wide

understanding from the public. Eventually, Omega makes its brand

connotation get further and wider recognition.

How can we achieve effective Co-branding?

Basing on the above disciplines of Brand Alliance, we can tell that in order to achieve

a really effective co-branding, the most important thing is to find the right partner and

the correspondency. The mutual choice between Omega and Olympic is harmonious,

and the brand of Omega has a close integration with the Olympics. Therefore,

comparing with other brands’ sort-of alliances, because of Omega’s profound

acknowledgement of Co-branding, its marketing comes more natural and is easier to

be accepted by the public.

Next is to possess the foresight of mastering timing. To Omega, although the

Olympics are getting more and more popular, most brands have just gained their

acknowledgement of Olympic-marketing value in recent years. In contrary, Omega is

leading other brands in this aspect. It has been the pioneer and been serving for

Olympic Games for more than 70 years. In the past 70 years since 1932, Omega has

provided timekeeping service to the Olympics for 22 times and maintains its profound

origin with the Games. Therefore, when it becomes extremely difficult to join in the

Top 10 Sponsors for Olympics, Omega obtains the leading position in the marketing

of Co-branding through its acute insight and foresight.

By witnessing the winners in the Games, Omega has brought up its own winner

position. We have learned from it that in a Co-branding, there is intra-influence

among Brand A, Brand B and Co-branding. A successful alliance is able to bring

immeasurable profit to a brand. Finding the right timing and correspondency are the

essentials to the success of a Co-branding.

Conclusion

In fact, Co-branding is everywhere. Omega’s Olympic marketing is just a classical

case. There is the basic promotional cooperation from tactical aspect of “buying

Coca-Cola, winning Founder computer”. There is also the most complicated

operation mode of launching a new brand in the form of alliance, such as Sony-

Ericsson by combining SONY and Ericsson, and the life-style brand WiII released

jointly by Panasonic, Toyata and Kao. Through connecting different brands to create

the effect of 1＋1>2 is the basic logic behind all these cases.

Have you Co-branded today? If the answer is “No”, maybe you should consider carefully

should your brand take the action of alliance. Because in every industry around the

globe, Co-branding has become the basic method for the leading brands to enhance

brand position, enlarge market share, create competitive edge and raise competition
threshold.