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Question:What is co-branding, and what are some examples?

Answer:Co-branding occurs when two or more brand names function together in creating a new product. Examples of co-branding range from credit cards to cereal to automobiles:

· AT&T Universal Master Card
· Citibank/American Airlines/Visa Card
· Healthy Choice Cereal by Kellogg’s
· Coach edition of the Lexus ES series
· Eddie Bauer edition of the Ford Explorer
· Water by Culligan GE Profile Refrigerator
· Pillsbury Brownies with Nestlé Chocolate
· Braun/Oral-B Plaque Remover

A genuine co-branding campaign has each company that is involved consistently focused on achieving the following goals:

· Respond to the marketplace’s expressed and latent needs.
· Leverage one’s own core competencies.
· Create a new product to increase corporate revenues.
· Increase product salience to the consumer.

In the online world there have been fewer co-branding successes. Furthermore, many online companies think they are pursuing co-branding when in fact they are pursuing strategic partnerships. Partnerships, which have different goals than co-brands, are a way of leveraging a corporation’s own strengths and softening its weaknesses via a joint effort with another firm.