Co-branding.

VOL. 0066 – FLORIDA, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2025

Juan F. Arjona Harry

President & CEO Strategee   

Today almost all world markets and economies were able to observe, live and demonstrate that what is really a great asset of a corporation is the power of its brands.

The brands generate demand, providing the necessary liquidity to the rest of the corporation. It is the brand who becomes the great asset that allows the purchase decision granting Consumer confidence, tranquility and time savings.

Brands enable optimization Value for Money, being the reason for the increased expenditure in many cases.

Today everybody knows the brand as an important differentiator in the product portfolio of the corporation.

In fact, the brand has become a tradable asset for corporations that decide to sell, purchase or grow others in order to strengthen a portfolio of products targeted to meet needs around them.

Today is more relevant in most of the world the practice of brand marketing over product marketing, or at least complementary to the marketing of products.

As a natural consequence of this progress and development in performance, value and relevance of brands, there is a fairly compelling strategy that will begin to become more relevant in our markets and is the co-branding.

Under this strategy, a company that is in a market with a reputed brand, decided to make a co-branding with another brand of equal or higher reputation with a specific target, where the end result is a faster choice of consumers for the product with brands in co-branding.

There are naturally commitments and obligations (convenience, and legal form), contained in the Branding Guide for commercial, visual and graphic use of both brands, both marketing teams should consider not to violate them, this is taken for granted, but there are goals that become ideal locations to establish a co-branding:

1. Co-branding can be done to introduce a new product to the market requiring to go in the vehicle of the “umbrella brand” in co-branding, especially when the consumption or use of the brand depends on the other.

2. Also co-branding can be done when two brands require the joint implementation of a strategy to block the entry or advancement of a major competitor in the market.

3. It may also be co-branding when a brand decides to exploit its Equity and power in the distribution channel, in order to enter a new product line that is been sold in the channel by other manufacturer.

4. It may be a co-branding when two manufacturers decide that "1 +1 = 3", combining the efforts of their sales teams to double or triple its per capita consumption do it with categories that are used or consumed in a complementary way.

5. You could also think of a co-branding when you plan to enter a new and unknown market.

6. In the same way, a co-branding can exist when a corporation wants to deploy social programs so its brand is displayed into products that are focus on social work.

7. It could also be co-branding when competing brands come together in support of a social cause and agree to participate for a time in the market under the union of both brands.

8. Could be a viable target of co-branding the search entrance into a new and unknown category by a manufacturer or merchant.

9. The co-branding could be also implemented when brands of different categories are seeking to participate in fairs, events, seasonal activities or just promotions to sell more pre-packs together that what they could have sold separately.

10. Finally a co-branding could be deployed when two companies that ignore a product category decide to address the risk of presenting together both brands on the market as a single brand.

In any of the situations described and regardless of whether there is one or more objectives of the ones described above, co-branding is a powerful tool that is being increasingly implemented in the market, given the power of attraction and differentiation that generate brands on consumers.