Sarvesh SoniFalguni Prajapati

Assi. Prof., Faculty of Management, SSESGI, Rajpur- Kadi, Mehsana

Consumers’ attitude towards a particular brand alliance influences their subsequent attitude towards the individual brands that

comprises that alliance.

Should a brand go in for dual branding ? How to select the most appropriate brand

partner ?

To understand the genesis of Co Branding strategy and to explore how Co-Branding can be helpful for the partnered firms in their brand building strategy

The methodology employed for research is exploratory in nature and does not include primary data collection.

No survey or response method is used. Data is collected from several secondary sources like journal articles,….

research papers, websites and online social media portals.

Co-branding- also called dual branding, brand alliance or brand bundling- occcurs when two or more existing brands are combined with into a joint product or marketed together in some fashion.

Used properly, it is an effective way to leverage strong brands and has the potential to achieve 'best of all worlds' synergy that capitalizes on the unique strengths of each contributing brand

Earlier, product association was limited to credit cards & Fast foods chains. But now, brands from varied backgrounds are realising that the key to survival is to become friends rather than competitors.

The result is the most unusual and highly innovative ways of co-branding and alliances across the market

It has made inroads into nearly every industry, from fast foods to automotive and high-tech Internet companies to banking –finance & entertainment .

The marketing mantra for most of the brands today is a strategic partnership or a co-branding exercise that can channelize market interest in their favour.

Increasing clutter in terms of similar product lines, advertising campaigns and fluctuating consumer preferences,  is forcing brands to join hands to offer benefits to ‘value for money’ seeking consumers.

New product launches clearly identify the brands that cooperated to create and market them. (LAVA Handset with Intel processors)

To maximize brand extension success rated, many companies seek help from other companies, brands, whose establishment reputation in the new market might prove decisive

Image reinforcement may also be an objective of co-branding. ( Ariel and whirlpool’s Art of Washing caimpaign)

(Nokia Asha has partnered with Yatra.com to offer free travel vouchers worth of Rs.4500 with purchase of Nokia Asha 305, 308 and 311 Smartphone)

Capitalizing on synergies among a number of brands with which brands associate themselves. (Ra-one’s association with more than 25 brands among themSony PlayStation, YouTube, Nerolac, McDonald’s, Videocon, Nokia, Coke, ESPN Star Sports and Cinthol etc.)

The aim is to attract more customers and to maximize the power and prestige that each brand has to offer.

Ingredient co-branding Same-company co-branding Corporate co-branding Mult iple-sponsors Silent Co-branding

According to Kotler & Keller (2011), a special case of co-branding is ingredient branding, which creates brand equity for materials, components, or parts that are necessarily contained within other branded products.

Maruti advertises that it uses MRF tires

Sometime a product brand associate itself with the manufacturer of the same product. It can be seen when corporate brand is enjoying higher prestige & awareness in the market.

A Titan watch from the house of TATAs or VOLTAS ACs advertises as a TATA product

Joint venture co-branding is yet another & common form of dual branding.

there is multiple-sponsor form of co-brands as in the case of HCL computers with hardware alliance of HP, processor alliance of Intel and software alliance of Microsoft..

not all alliance has been made visible In photocopy market, many products sold by

Canon are actually made by Richoh . To conquer the iced tea market, Nestle and Coca- Cola decided to unite against Unilever’s Lipton range.

The product, called Nestea, is not co-branded, though-Coca-Cola Company gets only a small mention on the back of the packaging.

The partner brand should be reliable and responsible.

Identify the original associations clinched to the brands.

There should be a common stimuli shared by both the brands.

Buying situation for both brands should be same. Exposure of Co-Branding in advertisement

1. Less expense to market a new product 2. Boost the company’s brand image while

increasing profits 3. Access to New markets 4. The risks involved would be less

* Source: http://pitchonnet.com/blog/2010/05/03/co-branding-brands-in-hand/

5. Improvement of products with the use of modern technology.

6. Introduction of your products or service to the other side

7. Benefits from the other company’s customer base

* Source: http://pitchonnet.com/blog/2010/05/03/co-branding-brands-in-hand/

"In co-branded communication, one brand may tend to be slightly stronger than the other, but there should be some synergy between the two in terms of the segments their target audiences lie in.

Co-branding is a dynamic branding strategy and its significance is growing especially with the increasing importance of Internet as a medium.

Although the benefits of co-branding are immense especially in a complex market like that of India but there are also some risks which are inherent in the concept.

The research is limited only to the study of journal articles, websites and online resources and as such does not cover each and every dimension of Co Branding.

This paper can be used as a starting point to do more research in creating Co-Branding strategies to assist brand building process

THANK YOU !!!!!