Due to the ever-changing market and the changing role of consumers, brand value, and reputation are becoming more important. As the business grows over the years, the reputation associated with it also grows, thus, determining branding and brand equity.

Branding is a marketing practice where marketers target consumers by bringing their products closer and setting up images about their brand. This helps to spot a product and distinguish it from other products and services.

Branding is completely critical to a business due to the general impact it makes on your company. It’s about how you distinguish yourself from the competitors and clarifying what is it you offer that gives you the position of higher choice.

Co-Incident branding has occurred as a new phenomenon in marketing gaining more and more importance, both in academic as well as practitioner circles with estimated annual growth rates around 46%.

After reviewing and analysing various research papers and case studies, we’ve compiled and come up with this article to help you understand everything about co-incident branding or co-branding and its importance in marketing.

All you need to know about Co-Incident Branding

Co-Incident Branding is usually used interchangeably with a spread of terms like Co-Branding, Collaborative Branding, Brand Alliances, Symbiotic Marketing, Joint Branding, or cross-promotional Branding.

In defining the term co-incident branding there are different approaches to be found in contemporary literature starting from very narrow to broad descriptions. Co-Incident Branding, may be defined as a marketing strategy that utilizes multiple brand names incidentally, intentionally, or unintentionally on service as a part of a strategic alliance, wherein it was not intended to be marketed or branded at the very first instance.

Also referred to as an incidence brand partnership, co-incident branding (or “co branding”) encompasses several different types of branding collaborations, typically involving the brands of a minimum of two companies. Each brand is seen as a strategic alliance, contributing to its own identity that was not earlier intended to make a melded brand with the assistance of unique logos, brand identifiers, and color schemes.

It can also make a product less vulnerable to copying and plagiarized by private-label competition.

Importance of Co-Incident Branding

Co-Incident branding may be a useful strategy for several businesses, seeking to extend their customer bases, profitability, market share, customer loyalty, brand image, perceived value, and price savings. Various sorts of businesses, like retailers, restaurants, carmakers, and electronics manufacturers, use co-branding to make synergies supporting the unique strengths of every brand.

Also Read: The Meaning, Significance, and Benefits of Social Media Branding

Simply put, co-incident branding as a technique seeking to realize market share, increase revenue streams, and maximize customer awareness.

Here are some important features of Co-Incident Branding.

Collaborating and building relationships – Co-Incident Branding is often spurred by two (or more) parties consciously deciding to collaborate on a specialized product or sometimes created as a form of an incident that was not meant. It might result from a corporate merger or acquisition as how to transfer a brand related to a well-known manufacturer or service provider to a better-known company and brand.

Co-Incident Branding can see quite just name and brand associations; there can also be a sharing of technologies and expertise, capitalizing on unique advantages of every co-branding partner.

Reputation – The image it conveys is more specific, so companies must consider whether co-incident branding can yield benefits or if it might alienate customers familiar with one name with a well-known product identity.

Companies should choose co-branding partners very carefully, since the maximum amount as a corporation can enjoy a relationship with another brand, and there also can be risks.

Bigger Customer Base – Co-Incident branding tends to make an overall marketing synergy by creating a bigger customer base that mixes the prevailing customer base of the brand pairs, highlighting the simplest features of each brand. Businesses operating online also hold the added visibility of their business website and other properties so on further promote the campaign.

Advantages of Co-Incident Branding

There are several advantages related to co-incident branding which includes:

Increased trust of consumers over the merchandise
Increased income from sales
Technological benefits wider scope due to joint advertising
Increased access to new financial sources
Better image of the merchandise through the association with other renowned brands

Instances of Co-Incident Branding or Co-Branding

Nike and Apple – This is a real example of successful co-branding. Nike determined that its customers who are runners wish to hear music once they exercise or want to track their progress. This incidentally led the corporate to make a partnership with Apple so that customers can do both.

Apple Watch series combined with Nike watch straps and partnership is one such example of a successful product. The built-in Apple Watch OS microchip will display user statistics like time, distance, and speed alongside the number of calories burned. The latest version of Apple watches series 5 brings significant improvement in health and fitness tracking, conducting an ECG right through the app by collaborating with the health institutions and hospitals.

MasterCard and Apple Pay – Both MasterCard and Apple have joined hands in making transactions cashless. MasterCard became the primary company that supported Apple Pay.

This provided Apple with a generous customer base, tweaking its service alongside providing MasterCard fresh features and performance, which was exclusive to its customers. After this, Apple has also allied with other MasterCard companies to expand the customer base.