Brand Plans Produce Team Players

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Burger King made a splash when it announced its new Mac n’ Cheetos concoction this month – Cheetos chips filled with creamy mac ‘n’ cheese. It is among a growing wave of unlikely partnerships struck by companies large and small as they seek to increase exposure by teaming up with other brands.

These arrangements have had traction with Hollywood for some time – in the latest iteration, ridesharing service Lyft will be offering rides in the Ecto-1 vehicle to promote the reboot of Sony Pictures’ “Ghostbusters” – but have recently expanded into consumer products.

The growth of the marketing strategy, essentially a way for a companies to defray costs even as they reach a potentially greater audience, has created a new market for Culver City advertising agency High Wide & Handsome.

The firm created a specialized “connection marketing” practice to help clients discover which brands would make for good partners.

Mike Wolfsohn, co-founder and chief creative officer at HWH, said it boils down to helping companies market themselves to a new audience.

“We wanted to try and figure out how we could help our clients stop talking to the same group of people over and over again and actually get their message out in front of another audience who would be likely to purchase their product,” he said.

Brand partnerships have been a staple of the ad industry, albeit one that has gained traction recently for its ability to quickly – and cheaply – get exposure without investing the time and money into social media platforms and traditional advertising spots.

For example, HWH recently proposed its client Fresno all-natural pet snack maker Plato Pet Treats form a partnership with dog-friendly hotel chains that will surprise pet-owning guests with a free treat at check-in.

“The beautiful thing is all they’re supplying is the product, which is very low cost for the pet treat brand,” Wolfsohn said. “And the hotel is very happy to distribute it because it allows them to provide a bit of surprise and delight for their customers at no additional expense.”

Rachel Spiegelman, president of Culver City ad agency Pitch, said a low-cost partnership might sound enticing, but companies should proceed with caution.

“If it’s not a clean read for a consumer – like a face wash that comes with a cool new towel – then you can waste your very small media plan,” she said. “I think because sometimes there isn’t hard cash associated with these partnership deals people forget to look at them with scrutiny.”

And Spiegelman said bad partnerships can turn off new and even existing customers to a brand.

Branching out

HWH was co-founded by Wolfsohn; Magnus Morgan, its director of client service; and John Truscott, president, in 2010. It has a staff of 20; the firm launched with the goal of keeping its employee count under 50.

Wolfsohn said the agency had been making connections between brands for about five years, only to formalize the practice recently as the cost of building out a social media strategy grew timely and expensive for clients.

“Platforms like Facebook have started to make it expensive not just for you to acquire those fans but charge you to actually communicate with them,” he said. “For brands that aren’t a Starbucks or Oreo, those are investments they can’t really justify so we needed to try to figure out how to stretch their dollars.”

The agency will start with a process it calls connection mapping, listing potential partners – from brands to celebrities – and even unexpected connections. It then goes through a series of steps to identify the best partnership, negotiating the right type of campaign, and reporting out its success to the client.

One “eerie pairing” was made over Halloween with its Brea client Ventura Foods’ Dean’s Dairy Dip product, which was matched with Pearls Olives, owned by Musco Family Olive Co. in Tracy.

Linking olives with dip is not a traditional approach, but Wolfsohn said it gave both companies an opportunity to present themselves in a unique way and reach new audiences. The agency created a week’s worth of social media content, including a short video featuring a noted food blogger, the costs of which were split between the brands.

Ventura and Musco shared the marketing material across both their respective social media platforms. The companies are in talks to continue working together, Wolfsohn said.

“It highlights the unexpected nature of these partnerships,” he said.

Social media benefits

Building up a client’s social media following to number in the millions could take months, even years; leveraging the following of a partner brand can add eyeballs and increase sales more quickly.

“Instead of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars and years to build up your own (social media) community, we’re able to do it often in a matter of weeks,” he said. “(And) oftentimes the investment was product and not really anything that was going against the existing marketing budget.”

While partnership marketing is not a new concept, it is seeing a resurgence.

Pitch’s Spiegelman said after the economic collapse in the early 2008 that most brands were focused on staying afloat.

“Brands got a little quieter and really wanted to focus on their own product and sell their own product,” she said. “Partnership marketing quieted down because everyone just needed to get traffic and sales.”

As Instagram and Snapchat became more popular, however, they created a breeding ground for social media stars.

“Social marketing blew up,” she said. “And influencer marketing was born. It’s kind of the same thing (with partnership marketing), only modernized.”

And now the industry is seeing a rebirth of cross-promotional tactics – even in entertainment.

Pitch created a set of commercials last week for Paramount Pictures on behalf of its partnership with Detroit-based Quicken Loans to promote “Star Trek Beyond,” set to open July 22.

Universal Pictures’ Illumination Entertainment also announced an exclusive partnership with pet store chain PetSmart this month to help promote its “The Secret Life of Pets,” opening July 8.

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