Content area
Full text
Co-Branding: The Science of Alliance Edited by Tom Blacket and Bob Boad
Keywords Brands, Alliances, Marketing
The importance of brands and trade names in marketing is well known. In a time when phenomena like co-operation, partnership and other forms of alliances are in fashion, a book about co-branding is well timed. The book is in 123 pages, excluding the appendix.
Co-branding, as defined by the authors, is a form of co-operation between two or more brands with significant customer recognition, in which all the participants' brand names are retained. It is usually of medium- to long-term duration and its net value creation potential is too small to justify setting up a new brand and/or legal joint venture. Legally the parties concerned are independent entities and their intention is to create something new - a product, a service or an enterprise - the scope of which falls outside their individual areas of capacity. The phenomenon is common today, have not we all an IBM-- Intel (or similar) co-branded computer on our desk? Well-known brands, often used for co-branding of consumer products, are, for example Lycra, Dolby and Teflon.
As the degree of shared value creation increases, four different forms of cobranding situations illustrated in the book arise. Low shared value creation represents what is called the "reach-awareness co-branding", the parties may rapidly increase awareness of their brand through exposure to their partner's customer base, for example the co-operation between American Express and Delta Airlines. On the second level the authors put "values endorsement co-- branding". The co-operation is especially designed to include endorsement of one or the other's brand values and positioning or both. Examples include the many banks that co-operate with credit cards or Le Cordon Bleu's co-branding deal with Tefal. In the latter example, high-quality cookware was launched with the name of the French culinary academy, synonymous with the...