Launch A Product With Another Brand: A Guide

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Updated: October 8th, 2022

What Is Joint Products (Co-Branding)?

Joint products/co-branding occurs when two businesses decide to come together to create one product.

Many brands combine forces so they can develop an exceptional product for various audiences.

Are you looking to increase your brand's reach, gain more market share or enhance your brand reputation?

In this post, we look at how co-branding can help you build your brand, and share examples of successful co-branding.

Co-Branding Key Takeaways

Success of one brand brings success to the partner brand.
Launching joint products generates product trust and credibility.
68% of consumers are likely to make purchase decisions without speaking to the sales agents.

Understanding How Co-Branding Works

Co-branding / Launch of joint products is a partnership strategy where brands work together to come up with a joint product as part of the strategic alliance.

The point of launching joint products is to combine market strength and build brand awareness.

Therefore, the success of one brand brings success to the partner brand.

If done effectively, co-branding helps the brands to break into new markets and boosts brands awareness.

However, for co-branding to work successfully, the partnership has to be a win-win for all players.

Types Of Co-Branding Strategies

Here are the most common co-branding strategies for your inspiration.

1. Ingredient Co-Branding

The ingredient co-branding strategy is where professionals identify successful ingredients/components from each brand and blend the ingredients to come up with joint products.

Ideally, each partner is usually a major brand in their industry and has unique qualities to ensure successful co-branding.

2. Same Company Co-Branding

The same company co-branding refers to a marketing strategy used by companies to promote multiple in-house brands under one product name.

Large food conglomerates often use this strategy to promote their products.

3. National To Local Co-Branding

The strategy involves small local businesses teaming up with a nationally known brand.

The goal is to increase national brand awareness while helping the small business to grow its revenue base.

4. Joint Venture Co-Branding

An alternative name for this type of co-branding strategy is composite co-branding.

The approach involves an alliance between two or more well-known companies.

The goal is to present a new product or a service that would not be possible individually.

The joint venture could be about creating an entirely new product together or just improving an existing product.

Real-World Examples Of Co-Branding Strategy

Here are some cool examples of co-branding you can learn from.

1. How Elf and Chipotle partnered To Create Successful Product

The surprising co-branding example involves a popular makeup brand, e.l.f, and one of America`s favorite restaurants, Chipotle.

The creative co-branding partnership involved finding similarities and using them to the advantage of the two brands.

The co-branding partnership saw the launch of an eye shadow palette chock-full or chipotle-inspired colors.

The e.l.fs “Chipotle Eyeshadow Palette” used colors that represented chipotles popular ingredients.

The ingenious combination from the two popular brands created a truly pleasing combination, to the benefit of the two brands.

In 2021, the two brands collaborated again, this time creating a completely new eyeshadow palette with colors that mimicked Chipotles main ingredients.

2. Taco Bell And T-Mobile Win-Win Collaboration

Back in 2019, T-Mobile and TacoBell announced the collaboration to create “T-Mobile Tuesdays”.

Essentially, all the T-Mobiles “un-carrier” customers were eligible to receive a free taco every Tuesday from Taco Bell.

The collaboration was successful in that in 2019, the two brands solidified the collaboration and even opened the “T-MoBell” stores in New York LA, and Chicago.

The stores offered free tacos along with co-branded merchandise.

Here is what T-Mobiles CEO John Legere Said about the concept.

“When we launched free tacos every week on T-Mobile Tuesdays, TacoBell.com had its highest online order day ever and T-Mobile Tuesdays was number one in the App Store. Since then, Un-carrier customers have snagged more than 14 million free tacos from the app!”

Four Tips For Creating A successful Co-Branding

Here are important tips to guide you when identifying a co-branding partner and through the co-branding process.

1. Identify Partners With Deep Synergy

Identifying a partner for co-branding plans can feel overwhelming.

Ensuring synergy helps to create better results and effects.

Besides, synergy helps generate better solutions to problems and guides the partners to achieving collaboration's vision and mission.

2. Collaborate with Partners Who Reflect Similar Brand Values

Successful partners agree on standards regarding desirables and undesirables.

As you probably know, business values guide actions, judgments, and choices.

Therefore, when partners’ values align, they are more likely to make congruent decisions and remain focused.

3. Choose Brand Partners That Are Leaders In Their Sector

Industry-leading businesses often have several advantages.

For instance, leading businesses have a loyal customer base and often enjoy greater brand recognition.

Therefore, co-branding with leading businesses could help startups to achieve faster growth.

4. Create Programs With Partners Who Complement Your Brand

Complementary partnerships help brands to reach new leads and continue innovating for loyal customers.

Such co-branding efforts result in long-term collaboration, and allow the organizations to expand into new markets, and engage existing customers better.

Conclusion

Co-branding helps reduce risks and generates royalty income.

Besides, co-branding helps develop a better product image and increase sales income.

However, for the business to enjoy these benefits, it is important you identify partners with deep synergy, and collaborate with partners who reflect similar brand values.

meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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