It’s a match! How to make your Brand partnerships process as easy as ABC.

Brand partnerships have the unique ability to match companies that share ambitions and goals. It can help both parts reach new markets, gain large groups of new consumers while saving on distribution and targeting costs. And, above all, gain consumers’ trust and increase awareness rapidly.

Global research conducted by IEG Sponsorships showed that 76% of companies agree partnerships are key to deliver revenue goals. It also found that more than half of companies (52%) generate over 20% of revenue from existing (long-term) partnerships.

With all of the value that brand partnerships bring, it is the art of the perfect match that makes a partnership successful. As our lives become more screen-based and marketing budgets skew towards digital platforms, identifying new ways to find that perfect match has become increasingly important.

Reinventing the process… we made it easy.

Partnerships have played a larger role in the last decade and have become a vital part of any campaign ecosystem; but how can you as a manager stay ahead of the curve and use the latest technology to reduce risks and partner with the right brands, influencers and content creators? 

Keep these three things in mind: Audience, Brand and Content, or simply ABC. 

A) Know your Audience

On the quest for organic growth, brands should find emotionally connected customers in order to generate greater brand equity and higher sales. 

Segment your audience and understand what messages and products can fulfil their emotional needs. This consumer segmentation approach, using emotions, can give companies a deeper understanding of their consumers which could translate into loyalty strategy or create a more meaningful relationship. 

B) Know your Brand archetype 

Understand what consumers think and feel about your brand. What attributes and qualities come to mind when they hear your brand’s name. Your brand archetype goes beyond what is written in your brand guidelines, it is the result of how your communications have been absorbed and translated in your consumer’s subconscious.

Inspired by the work of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, the brand archetype study helped us to understand what consumers think and feel about 3000+ brands globally. The study gives deeper insights into what attributes brands share with each other and therefore fulfil consumers’ emotional needs through a partnership.  

In consumers minds, attributes can be seen as, how fun your brand is, or how outgoing, innovative, innocent, sexy, adventurous or friendly it is. Knowing how your brand is seen and where you want it to go will enable you to choose your partner wisely. The second part of the perfect match. 

C) Align Content Creative

Content has always been king and most of the time it is well-aligned with your brand values and attributes. However, as content can build deep connections with audiences, the third piece of the perfect match makes sure your content is also aligned with your partner's consumer’s emotional needs. 

Strong storytelling with the support of SEO data can give you an immense competitive advantage to position your content at the heart of the consumer journey. Indeed, it isn’t called a “journey” by accident; it needs to have a direction, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Furthermore, understanding consumers’ emotional needs make the content creation process far more likely to enhance the partnership.

Putting the pieces together

The ABC approach helps to maximise your KPIs based on three key forces: Audience, Brands and Content. 

The overlap of these three factors gives you a sweet spot and the opportunity to understand consumers’ motivations and deliver partnerships that can connect with an audience on an emotional level.

A great example that illustrates how a strategic partnership can deliver beyond business expectations is the award-winning campaign between Audi & Marvel campaign case study.

It is easy to visualise, in this example, how potential Audience segmentation, Brand attributes and Content creative were aligned to maximise outcomes. 

The performance of the Audi store launch indicates that the campaign successfully attracted the public's attention, especially among young customers. Throughout the campaign, over 500,000 people visited the Tmall store in China, and the number of sales leads and rate of conversion exceeded previous local Audi campaigns EVER.

Time to match

Undoubtedly, strategic brand partnerships are one of the most effective ways for companies to reach their KPIs and finding that perfect match is certainly an art. 

 

By using the ABC as a tool, you are going to be able to make your brand partnerships meaningful and more relevant to your target audience. This process will help you understand all of the factors that your brand partnership ecosystem needs to succeed. Whether it’s repositioning your brand, creating awareness, driving sales or simply accessing potential opportunities within brand partnerships globally. 

If you are interested in learning more about the data behind partnerships or how to implement the process within your in-house team, we are here to help and have lots of exciting case studies and learnings to share.