Marketing Briefing: How co-branding became ‘a key piece’ of how marketers plan their year

“Aligning with brands that resonate with your community has the ability to allow you to meet new audiences,” wrote Laurie Lam, chief brand officer at e.l.f. Beauty, in an email when asked about the beauty brand’s approach to collaborations. The company has collaborated with the likes of Chipotle, Liquid Death and, most recently, Caboodles. “Our collaborations are all about disrupting expectations and aligning with brands that share our bold, fearless spirit,” she added.

Brands have to go far beyond traditional marketing techniques to build audiences and get people to pay attention to what their brands are doing, particularly online where consumers are spending more of their time. Bizarre online personas are one way to get that attention. Collaborations are another. 

“As consumers grow more skeptical of traditional advertising, unexpected brand collaborations offer an effective way to capture attention and spark conversations,” said Olivia Newman, senior integrated strategist, at ad agency Campbell Ewald. “These unique partnerships engage audiences naturally, making the message feel more like a cultural moment to share and discuss, and less like a typical ad.” 

Newman continued: “Co-branding is also a powerful way for brands to expand their reach and tap into new audiences by leveraging each other’s customer bases. This cross-pollination of brand loyalties can lead to increased exposure and potential sales for both parties involved.” 

It’s unclear how the terms of the deal shake out for partnerships in terms of ad spend commitments or production fees as they vary by brand and by the components of the partnerships. When looking for brand partners marketers should “start with your community and allow those insights to guide you into authentic collaborations,” said e.l.f. Beauty’s Lam, who noted that the recent collaboration with Caboodle sold out in 35 minutes and the company saw a “589% lift in website users” during that time. “There is also power in unpredictability,” wrote Lam in an email.

Collaborations have become “a key piece of how [marketers] look at planning the year,” explained Jonny Shaw, chief strategy officer at ad agency VCCP. Marketers are spending more time in the planning stages thinking about the right moments to do collaborations with either different brands or different pop culture entities, noted Shaw, adding that there’s “a lot of appetite” for the right collaboration. 

Brand collaborations typically come from the client-side rather than agencies pitching collaborations, explained Rafa Pitanguy, deputy global chief creative officer at VML, adding the most “profound” brand collaborations are those that come when brands co-create or rethink a product together. 

When the idea does come from the agency-side, agency execs will typically contact a brand or the brand’s agency to see if the brand might be amenable to a collaboration before pitching it to a client as agencies don’t want to pitch an idea that may not be possible, explained agency execs. 

As marketers and agency execs grapple with the continued changing nature of the traditional advertising landscape the appeal of the co-branded ad grows. “It used to be 16 minutes of commercials during a linear hour and now it’s maybe four or five tops during the streaming hour,” said Paul Furia, head of content and creative packaging, Media by Mother. “So your inventory is much smaller.”

3 Questions with Maria-Teresa Laspisa, senior director of marketing, PepsiCo Multicultural

Pepsi’s the first advertiser to leverage a new partnership between multicultural media company Remezcla and the NFL, with a branded content series, “Holding the Line,” which shows line cooks cooking Cuban and Mexican food at stadium tailgate events. Hispanic audiences aren’t strangers to the NFL, so why is Pepsi focusing on them now?

Pepsi globally, has partnerships with many sports leagues, such as the NFL or the NBA and the Champions League. We’ve always been part of that space… [but] we’ve always taken an overall approach — celebrating the fans and the occasion of getting together and watching games. This is probably the first time we’ve done something that is directly for those consumers.

We’ve seen the growing relevance of football among the [U.S.] Hispanic population… and the partnership with Remezcla and the NFL was a great opportunity for us and be able to create content that would engage with these consumers.

Why use a branded content series to reach those consumers?

In this particular series, we’re showcasing the combination of food and sports and the culture, tailgate culture. We know that Hispanics are super proud of their food, and it’s one of the things that they like to share. So it was an organic way to bring that pride that they have for their food and Pepsi [together].

It was a great opportunity to get to engage with them and acknowledge that their their fandom in the space.

“Holding the Line” will be distributed via Remezcla’s owned and operated channels, including YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Will Pepsi be using any paid spend budget to help the work gain visibility?

It’ll be going on our YouTube channels, as well as those of [Spanish-language] Mundo NFL. To me, this [the branded content series] is paid spend. — Sam Bradley

By the numbers

Marketers may have begun retreating from wider sustainability debates in business, but that doesn’t mean consumers have stopped caring about corporate policy — or that they’re ignorant of the cost of reducing environmental impact. Agency holding company Dentsu surveyed 20,000 consumers across 10 countries, including the U.S., U.K. and Japan, for their take on sustainability. The report found consumers want change, but that they’re also wary of greenwashing.

“Trust in brands around sustainability runs low… consumers seem to have a limited sense of how brands are creating meaningful change in ways that they can see and touch in their daily lives,” wrote authors Tara Moss, global head of sustainability consulting, Dentsu Good, and strategist Victoria Keziah. According to Moss, marketers need to speak to the public’s understanding of sustainability, and “create more impactful and relevant sustainability strategies which resonate with their target audiences and foster deeper connections.“

• 70%: The proportion of consumers surveyed who said brands and businesses had a responsibility to reduce their environmental footprint. Consumers thought businesses had a higher responsibility than governments (56%) or ordinary citizens (61%).
• 56%: The percentage of consumers who think sustainability “concerns” are already affecting their cost of living. 65% said a more sustainable future means a more expensive one.
• 47%: The proportion of those surveyed who believed brands make misleading claims or fib about their sustainability practices. — Sam Bradley

Quote of the week

“It’s just that their sheer physical and digital footprint is one that really can’t be denied.”

— Bana Amare, director of activation at ad agency Media by Mother, when asked about the growth of Walmart’s retail media business and its appeal to clients.

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