Creative Endeavors

Marketing co-operation is a partnership of at least two companies on the value chain level of marketing with the objective to tap the full potential of a market by bundling specific competences or resources. Other terms for marketing co-operation are marketing alliance, marketing partnership, co-marketing, and cross-marketing. It is a marketing practice where two companies cooperate with separate distribution channels, sometimes including profit sharing.

Co-brand marketing connect brands and products in unconventional ways, in order to increase their attractiveness and to profit from each other.

Co-promotion is a marketing practice where a company, in addition to its own sales force, uses another company's sales force to promote the same brand or range of brands.

Co-operative advertising is where the ad costs are divided between two or more companies. Co-ops ads often crossmarket items like CDs, ring tones, concert packages and other merchandise, making for a bigger overall pie.

When should you co-market?

Marketing co-operations are sensible when the marketing goals of two companies can be combined with a concrete performance measure for the end consumer. Successful marketing co-operations generate “win-win-win” situations that offer value not only to both partnering companies but also to their customers.

Marketing co-operations extend the perspective of marketing. While marketing measures deal with the optimal organization of the relationship between a company and its existing and potential customers, marketing co-operations audit to what extent the integration of a partner can contribute to improving the relationship between companies and customers.

There are four main objectives of marketing co-operations:

• Build-up and/or strengthening of brand/image by implementing joint communication measures
• Access to new markets/customers by directly addressing the co-operation partner’s customers or by using its distribution points
• Increase of customer loyalty by addressing own customers with value added offerings from the partner
• Reduction of marketing costs by bundling marketing measures

Marketing co-operations can take on many different shapes, for instance:

• Joint product development or Co-branding
• Joint communication or “Co-advertising“
• Joint sales measures or Co-promotion
• Co-marketing
• Product bundling
• Sponsoring
• Branded Entertainment
• Product placement
• Sales partnerships
• Licensing

Creative Endeavors specializes in forming co-operative relationships. If you are interested in creative solutions for business expansion, please contact us.