Co-Branding as a Tool for Strategic Brand Activation

Co-branding, generally referred to as the pairing of two brands in a marketing context, plays an important role when it comes to brand building and activation. Natalia Dorozala and Antonia Kohlbrenner show the importance of partner selection in the context of co-branding and explain that partner selection depends decisively on the different co-branding aims and incorporates the crucial step when using co-branding as a tool for strategic brand activation. Also, they demonstrate that the co-branding aim and the corresponding partner lead to various types of relationships, which in this work, are anthropomorphized to connect the world of marketing and branding to real life. Finally, the authors illustrate that fashion and design brands have proven to be particularly eligible as co-branding partners for brand activation due to their innovative and trend-oriented nature. This is shown by case studies conducted about H&M, adidas, Philips, Sharp, BMW and Volkswagen including interviews with company representatives.