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By
Gregory J. Pollack
Smart marketers today are turning to a number of different marketing tools to grow and drive their brands and businesses forward. Within the busy world of brand marketing, utilizing the strength of marketing alliances or marketing partnerships to get product into new channels and venues is an essential marketing element to generate incremental sales. As corporate and brand budgets are constantly scrutinized, Partnership Brand Marketing Programs can grow your business and acquire new customers and users in all channels of distribution.
The Power of Partnership Brand Marketing brings two different companies and brands together – each with their own brand equity and their own distribution channel strength. Whether it's teaming a car manufacturer with a theme park to captivate the family segment, pairing ketchup with home video, or aligning toys with food, corporations today are looking to create strategic alliances that tap the areas in which they may not normally compete -- providing incremental marketing exposure and ultimately gaining new customers.
Many organizations often place Partnership Marketing under the Promotions banner within the marketing mix, and as such, can become more promotions-based and limiting in nature. Partnership Marketing Programs however, are much more strategic and expansive in scope, and therefore, more than just Promotions. For Partnership Marketing to deliver its full potential, it should be elevated to a more strategic level. The key reason is that partnerships can involve all elements of the marketing mix and thus impact a company's overall marketing message and platform, its advertising program, as well as product packaging and merchandising. Partnership Marketing Programs can also establish a base in which to create joint sales and distribution opportunities, broader in-store merchandising, more compelling POS displays, and overall stronger value for the consumer.
To yield Partnership Marketing's full potential and reap all of its results and successes, it should be positioned at the top of a company's marketing mix, providing incremental value at all levels. Thus, Partnership Brand Marketing can actually affect and contribute to all elements of the marketing mix including Product, Price, Place/Distribution, and Promotions.
In fact, creating strong, relevant, and effective Partnership Brand Marketing Programs can be a key cornerstone of every company's marketing plan and marketing mix. For example, Partnership Marketing can impact the actual product, increasing the overall value and providing stronger benefits to consumers; Partnership Marketing adds value to the overall Price element as it delivers a higher level of perceived value and provides consumers more reasons to purchase; Partnership Marketing impacts the Place/Distribution element, as it can open up new and alternative channels of distribution delivering new places to sell product and gain shelf space; and for Promotions, Partnership Marketing delivers incremental marketing exposure and shares in the equity/strength of each partner's brand.
Key benefits of creating Partnership Brand Marketing Programs are far reaching within a company. Not only does Partnership Marketing broaden the reach of a company's core target audience and extend its marketing budget, it also saves money and broadens the spectrum for the brand marketing group. This provides much-needed additional marketing exposure and ultimately helps in gaining new customers. Additionally, Partnership Brand Marketing Programs can also bring relevance and purpose to co-branding initiatives.
To ensure that Partnership Brand Marketing Programs can become wider in scope and purpose, program overlays can be added. These program overlays can include all elements of a company's marketing mix such as Promotions, Advertising, Product, In-Store Merchandising, Distribution, Direct, Online, Public Relations, etc. Additionally, program overlays can include cross-company functions and disciplines including Corporate/General Management, Human Resources, Special Events, etc. By leveraging any and all possible program overlays, companies can run employee of the month programs, deliver special incentives and employee benefits with the partner company, as well as create special product launch events.
As an example, we at PBM Marketing Solutions, recently completed a national marketing alliance bringing Volvo Cars of North America to LEGOLAND California. In creating the partnership marketing opportunity on behalf of LEGOLAND California, it was important to first understand the brand -- what it stood for; the consumers it reached; and the brand value and brand characteristics it delivers to its consumers.
When looking for the right marketing partnership, we needed to make sure to align with another brand that delivered similar attributes and quality, while providing incremental marketing exposure in an alternative channel of distribution – and at the same time, creating a synergy and balance in a relationship between two very different brands.
In creating a marketing partnership with Volvo, the LEGOLAND California brand was able to reach and market to consumers in the automotive channel, including dealers and auto shows in key cities nationwide.
In turn, Volvo was able to reach customers in the all-important family theme park channel. By exposing and introducing consumers to Volvo flagship vehicles at a theme park, Volvo could promote and expand on the corporate heritage and brand image that has defined the company as an automotive leader in safety, quality, and performance.
And the marketing partnership between LEGOLAND California and Volvo now extends far beyond the promotional arena, as it includes Cross Promotions; Joint Advertising; a Dealer component; marketing exposure on the national Auto Show circuit; a Life-size Volvo LEGO car; Volvo cars placed at LEGOLAND California; LEGOLAND marketed in Volvo auto dealer channel; Volvo becoming the “Official Car of LEGOLAND California;” Special Events; and Corporate/Employee Programs.
As a result of the joint marketing partnership and a fully integrated approach, the overall value to the consumer has increased significantly. At the end of the day, it is important that the consumer can take a look at such a marketing partnership and say “that makes sense.”
In today's busy world of brand marketing, utilizing the strength of Partnership Brand Marketing to gain incremental marketing exposure and penetration of new distribution channels is not only smart – it is an essential marketing tool for marketers to remain even more competitive in today's constantly changing marketplace.
PBM Marketing Solutions is a strategic marketing organization that helps companies acquire new customers in all channels of distribution. Our primary focus is within the consumer products, packaged goods and food arena, theme parks, and entertainment industries. We utilize key marketing elements such as marketing alliances, promotions, branding, product marketing, packaging, marketing research and a host of other programs, to penetrate these channels and gain incremental distribution and marketing exposure for the companies and brands we represent. In addition, we also specialize in researching, securing, negotiating, managing, and implementing partnership marketing and marketing alliance programs. You can reach PBM Marketing Solutions at (310) 889-0049 or www.pbmmarketing.com , or contact Gregory Pollack directly at gpollack@pbmmarketing.com.
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