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From matches made in heaven to surprising collaborations, teaming up with another brand can pack a serious punch when it comes to elevating your PR and marketing game. In the first instalment of our ‘importance of’ series, we explore how brand partnerships can shape and elevate brand image and reach new audiences, and we provide insightful tips to help you get started with your own impactful partnerships.
Shared values, shared success
Where two brands share similar or complementary values, a partnership can be incredibly powerful. Consider Fendi and Tiffany & Co, for example, who celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Fendi Baguette bag in 2023 by collaborating with Tiffany & Co. on a series of bags in Tiffany’s trademark blue. The product collaboration was only available for 24 hours and Tiffany & Co set up a virtual waiting room to protect their site from the high volume of traffic and ensure fair access. When prestigious brands such as these work together it has a multiplying effect, enhancing the brand image of each and strengthening consumer confidence in both brands. And although they occupy overlapping market segments, a partnership enables them to tap into each other’s customer bases, reaching new but compatible audiences they might not have accessed independently.
The brand partnership between iconic English brand Hunter Boots and one of the UK’s leading independent hotel groups, De Vere, leveraged the shared heritage of both brands. As part of the partnership, De Vere provides Hunter wellington boots for guests to borrow during their stay, all communicated to De Vere’s audiences via colourful social media posts, a bespoke photoshoot and light-hearted blog posts.
The two brands enhance each other: Hunter Boots matches De Vere’s British heritage and upscale brand positioning, while reinforcing its emphasis on spending time in nature and enjoying the acres of beautiful outdoor space that De Vere hotels offer. The partnership we established between De Vere and the outdoor leisure brand Regatta worked in a similar way, illustrating a lifestyle and communicating the hotel group’s key USPs.
Telling better stories
The partnerships between De Vere Hotels and Hunter Boots / Regatta also provide a wealth of potential storytelling opportunities. This is because each brand brings its own themes, values and ideas and together they can create deeper, more compelling narratives than either could on their own.
Similarly, the partnership we established between contemporary apart’hotel brand Citadines and food waste app Too Good to Go harnessed the apart’hotels ‘home from home’ branding, illustrated its cooking and dining facilities and tapped into its sustainability ethos. All while appealing to the brand’s Gen Z and millennial target audience.
Broadening brand horizons
But what if you want to reach entirely new audiences? Brand partnerships can help here too, as collaborating with a contrasting brand allows you to borrow a little of their brand image, showing a different side to your product or service and exposing the brand to new and unexpected audiences.
An example of a non-hotel brand which used a partnership to reach new audiences is the cult fashion designer Simone Rocha and shoe wear company Crocs. The surprising collaboration features a collection of bejewelled signature styles which have garnered acres of fashion and women’s lifestyle press and elevated the brand to a serious wardrobe item, even sported by the likes of Rihanna.
Unconventional brand partnerships which blend elements like luxury with sustainability or tradition with innovation provide particularly rich and compelling storytelling opportunities. Fashion and hotels have gone hand in hand for some time now. However, a twist on this trend and a more unusual pairing is contemporary art and luxury hotels, such as the Artiq collection for Raffles London at The OWO.
The hotel is built on the historic royal site of Whitehall Palace and was witness to world-shaping events of the twentieth century. In this historically male-dominated space, the art strategy focused on shifting the narrative to highlight the often-overlooked stories of women during wartime. The collection honours the building’s heritage while showcasing some of London’s most exciting emerging talent. For guests, this creates a one-of-a-kind experience that brings the area’s past and present to life in a unique and meaningful way.
Tips to help you get started
It sounds simple, but the first step is to get really clear on what it is you would like to achieve with a partnership. Is it doubling down on your existing brand image, or branching out in a new direction? Is it expanding your audience, or telling better stories and increasing media coverage? Once you know this, you can begin to draw up a list of companies that fit the bill and work on ideas that will suit both brands. At The Audience, we can research and connect you with brands that fit with your strategy for growth and work with them to generate creative collaboration ideas.
Remember the unexpected angle. If it suits your brand and if you would like to reach new audiences, then thinking outside the box or taking inspiration from other industries can help fuel the creative process. These unusual partnerships can provide rich storytelling angles and deliver cut through media coverage.
Finally, it’s a two-way thing, and a partnership must offer something to both brands. It can be tempting to stop at the ‘what they can do for us’ stage, but to get maximum value from a partnership and ensure you reach new audiences effectively, carefully consider what your brand can offer their audience in return. And don’t forget to leverage each other’s media channels (from social media to PR and marketing efforts) to amplify reach and help drive sales.
From creating a brand partnership strategy to brainstorming collaboration ideas and identifying potential partners, our expert team at The Audience has in-depth experience in establishing effective brand partnerships. Get in touch to discover how we can collaborate with your own marketing team to achieve exceptional results.
