Stranger danger? Considerations for sporadic brand collaborations

Collaborating with a brand that has nothing to do with fashion tends not to be at the top of most clothing companies to-do lists. Most would rather opt for the playing it safe option, garnering little attention from consumers and media outlets alike with yet another predictable fashion brand alliance. Take H&M’s collaboration last year with London-based brand Erdem for example, receiving 3o million less impressions than their 2016 collaboration, and over 200 million less impressions than in 2014 (Shannon 2017). The reality is, consumers are bored of the predictable nature of what once was a novel trend.

“That element of newness and surprise that collaborations can offer is a critical weapon in the war to stay present in the news feeds of consumers”

As with anything in business, the want of a greater gain carries a greater risk. Dennis and Merrilees (2009) identify four main risks of brand collaborations to be a loss of control, confused positioning, fewer leverage points and image dilution of either brand. Despite this, the risks can be effectively managed, provided there is commonality between the cultures, management styles, mutuality and equality between both firms. Not only this, but by collaborating with an unrelated brand, it allows for each company to be creative and transfer their existing strengths to a new industry.

Supporting the view that brands belonging to different product-categories can, and have in the past collaborated successfully. Take for example the collaboration between care manufacturer Renault and cosmetics firm L’oreal, who designed a concept car that was able to provide a hydrating air conditioning system reminisce of an in-car spa (see figure 1). There are said to be a number of bases of fit that can enhance the success of a collaboration (Lanseng and Olsen 2012). Brands may be similar in symbolic factors that allow for the satisfaction of expressive needs among customers, such as self expression and group identification.

Figure 1: Renault and L’oreal’s collaboration was a success among female customers in France

Collaborations of this nature involve a greater amount of cognitive effort on the part of the customer to evaluate the proposition of this new brand alliance when there is no functional fit, deterring some customers from wanting to engage with the campaign. Customers may create a new schema for the brand alliance, forming new associations between the brands using existing knowledge of the nature of each brand. To overcome this, collaborating brands should ensure they understand existing schema and association networks that customers hold towards each brand, basing their campaign efforts on similarities held by the views of each set of customers.

Running social media competitions with your new brand alliance

When starting a seemingly harmless competition for your latest brand collaboration campaign on social media, there are numerous considerations that need to be accounted for. From a legal perspective, a UK based competition that costs money to enter without requiring any skill to be entered into a prize draw is a lottery, and would require a lottery operating license to avoid any illegality. One way around this is to incorporate a degree of skill into your competition, in turn deterring the majority of the general population from entering. An example of this would be to ask customers to solve a puzzle to be entered into a competition. On the other hand, asking a simple question such as naming the capital of France would not merit an element of skill being used to enter.

Figure 2: how not to ask questions in a paid entry competition

Brands must also be aware of the differences in the terms and conditions each social media site possesses with regard to running competitions. Twitter, for example, discourages posting the same competition related tweet repeatedly, whereas Facebook prohibits participants being able to tag themselves in promotional photos which they do not feature in. To see more information on the policies set by different social media sites click here.

Lastly, brands need to ensure competitions comply with the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code) This involves providing terms and conditions of the competition, providing details of when winners will be announced, the exact nature of the prizes and any restrictions put in place (i.e. geographical restrictions) among other aspects of the competition.

What can your new brand alliance do to maximise the chances of the competition being successful?

Deciding how to run your competition depends on the overall objective of the competition, with there being three purposes to competitions, as seen below:

Figure 3: the three purposes to running competitions (Ogden et al 2017)

With a brand collaboration strategy, it is likely that one of the main objectives would be to reach out to new customers and influence their beliefs about both brands. These low-valuation customers are most likely to engage with a competition that offers a prize structure of multiple large and smaller prizes, due to the  risk averse nature of such individuals (Kalra and Shi 2010). Such customers will also not hold the same strong  association networks of the brands as existing customers, therefore brands can use the competition as a tool of beginning to positively influence the customer. A downside this presents is the costly nature of providing multiple small and large prizes. This can be mitigated by offering non-cash prizes instead of cash prizes, which also increases the chances that people taking part in the competition will also be interested in the collaboration campaign itself, rather than just being ‘in it to win it’.

References

Dennis, C. and Merrilees, B. (2009). European journal of marketing. Bradford: Emerald Group, p.796.

Kalra, A. and Shi, M. (2010). Consumer Value-Maximizing Sweepstakes and Contests. Journal of Marketing Research, [online] 47(2), pp.287-300. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25674427.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A1783c271fce2137d7d2e94f746d5fd8d [Accessed 16 Feb. 2018].

Lanseng, E. and Erling Olsen, L. (2012). Brand alliances: the role of brand concept consistency. European Journal of Marketing, [online] 46(9), pp.1108-1112. Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/03090561211247874 [Accessed 19 Feb. 2018].

Ogden, S., Minahan, S. and Bednall, D. (2017). Promotional Competitions: A Taxonomy of Campaign Framing Choices Integrating Economic, Informational, and Affective Objectives. Journal of Promotion Management, [online] 23(4), pp.449-455. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10496491.2017.1297971?needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Brighton [Accessed 17 Feb. 2018].