Co-branding is a powerful way to market your business on social media. It’s a win-win for both brands and for customers, too. Using this approach, you are able to reach your audience and leverage a partner’s reach (their audience, too). Hence, the impact of being able to bring together two (or more) brands for a campaign will have multiplying effects and returns for the campaign.

While partnering brands utilize each other’s audiences and reach for their own goals, they may also convert many new followers/subscribers into their main audience! The biggest factors for successful co-branding campaigns are 1), to make sure you’re working with the right partner(s) and 2), that your collaborator is aligned with you. This means you should agree on the campaign goals, KPIs as what’s going into the campaign. 

Next, Let’s look at some real co-branding examples and see how it is done!

Athenian Corner and Warp & Weft

Warp & Weft: A restaurant and bar in Lowell, MA that hosts Wednesday Night Trivia Night. They wanted to attract more customers to trivia night by inviting Athenian Corner’s customers, who were sitting a few feet away, to join in. 

Athenian Corner: A Greek restaurant in Lowell, MA, decided to join the fun and started co-marketing the Wednesday Night event on social media. More Athenian Corner customers now participate in Warp & Weft’s established Wednesday Night Trivia Night.

How it worked: Both businesses advertise the newly structured Wednesday Night Trivia with the addition of two locations. The neighboring restaurants capitalize on the proximity of their spaces to attract additional customers and trivia lovers. 

Are you interested in tactics for marketing restaurants? You can also read “Creative Marketing for Restaurants.”

Unsplash’s Creative “Topic Takeovers” with Atlas Obscura

Unsplash provides free stock images for use without any obligation to provide accreditation when using an image. Photos are organized into topics making them easy to find and browse. However, Unsplash wanted to dramatically increase its image database. They wanted to inspire their contributors to submit more photos. They decided to work with other brands by creating “Topic Takeovers” with big brands like Atlas Obscura, Microsoft, and Dell. 

How it worked: Unpslash asked users to submit their best travel shots from around the world for an opportunity to be selected for a collection of the top 20 images that would be curated by Atlas Obscura.

This collaboration inspired users to submit many photos! Each brand hosted a curated album on the topic’s page. Emails to users went out to promote the Topic Takeovers and articles were published in Medium to further promote the images. Unsplash also did Topic Takeovers on “Remote Work” with Microsoft; “Latest Trends in Technology” with Dell; and “Sustainability” with Boxed Water. 

Each brand was able to be exposed to Unsplash’s vast pool of users without having to invest in targeted advertising for this audience on their own. 

Uber & Spotify’s “Soundtrack for Your Ride”

Uber: Ride-hailing app looking to enhance the experience of their users/riders.

Spotify: Music-streaming app featuring tons of artists, playlists, and podcasts, and encourages users to create their own playlists to share with others.

How it worked: Uber and Spotify teamed up to create a joint campaign – “Soundtrack for Your Ride”. Uber users would log into their app to book a ride. While waiting for their ride to arrive, they would be prompted to sign in to Spotify to create or choose the playlist for their upcoming ride. This campaign would allow Uber users to personalize their ride for their enjoyment, while Spotify would earn either new or more frequent users on their app. If you’ve ever taken an Uber before, you likely know the importance and benefit of being able to pick your own playlist for your ride!

Airbnb & Flipboard’s Combination Feeds

Airbnb: wanted to offer more to their users beyond physical lodging and getaways. 

Flipboard: collects news and other content being shared on social media and provides a “feed” that users can look through.

How it worked: The two entities teamed up to create Experiences that provide Airbnb users with lifestyle content shared by others who have similar interests. Airbnb users were exposed to Flipboard’s capabilities, while Flipboard earned more users from Airbnb’s vast reach.

Uncertain if co-branding is right for your business (it is) OR you want in on the action but aren’t sure who to align yourself with? Feel free to contact us for guidance! 

How Do I Create and Plan a Co-branded Collaboration?

There are various ways to plan your collaboration. It all depends on your goals. Do you want to increase user content generation or have more types of customers become aware of you? Tomo360, a digital marketing agency in the Greater Boston area, can help your business to brainstorm creative co-branded collaborations. We can also help to plan and execute them! Contact us today at [email protected]!

In addition to marketing and creative collaborations, Tomo360 can be your partner in a variety of Marketing Services. Tomo360 features a dynamic team of marketing experts that can help you connect better with your customers!