What is Co-Branding?

Co-Branding of Airtel and PepsiCo

Have you watched the ad which sells mobile data along with a packaged snack? If not, then just invest a minute on watching this ad for getting a better understanding on Co-Branding.

This is a new festive television commercial promoting free airtel data along with a packet of Kurkure and Lays. This will help you in understanding the term better.

Co-Branding is a marketing strategy that involves a strategic alliance of two or more than two brands jointly through a single product.

Why Co-branding?

• Share risk
• Generate royalty income
• Increase sales
• Garner more loyalty
• Joint advertising
• Better product image by associating with a renowned brand

In the wake of this pandemic all over the globe, remote working has been the new normal for every cohort. Identifying midnight craving and mid-day munching with exhaustive use of internet led to co-branding by Airtel and PepsiCo. The latter identified the surge in data usage for most of the prepaid users and maximised this opportunity by giving 4G data free on every pack of Lays or Kurkure.

What Airtel gets?

• Approx 266 million prepaid users of Airtel who may exhaust daily data usage because of remote working or in-house entertainment.

What Pepsico gets?

• The people craving for more food due to exhaustive work routine and excessive workload who try to keep themselves up whole night for meeting deadlines next morning.

According to the negotiation rules, always try to make your pie bigger, because the bigger the pie, the better share you get along with your competitor. Co-branding is a great startegy to make your pie bigger and get a better share of it. This results into a win-win situation for both the companies and helps them generate revenue through more sales and more customers. This is rather a co-opetition model where there is no direct competition among the companies and app based service providers. There have been great associations in the past among big brands like Ola and OnePlus, Paytm and Ola, Uber and London Dairy etc.

Now next time when you see a brand, try to think of another brand who can create synergy and benefit each other through co-branding. Till then, share your views in the comment section and let me know your thoughts on co-branding. Stay tuned and subscribe to my blog page for more such content.

Stay safe! Keep branding!