Why Should Your Branding Follow a More Diverse and Collaborative Approach?

Updated on :October 18, 2023
By :Paul Richards

Do you know the most significant difference between a product and a brand? A product is created by manufacturers, whereas customers build a brand. A product is merely an item for sale, whereas a brand has a distinct and irreplaceable identity offering value to its customers. Brand management in this online domain needs to be co-created and not merely imposed.  

“A Brand is just a perception, and the perception will match reality over time.”

Well, this is how the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, Elon Musk, defines a brand. 

If we decode this definition of brand, Musk means that brands and customers share a symbiotic understanding, which keeps evolving organically over time. Perception or symbiotic understanding is a critical component of branding. 

Despite the fear of recession, it is still critical to plan and optimize your branding strategies in 2023. Digital revolution, disrupting technologies, changing consumer behaviors, Covid-19 pandemic have all been significant contributors to the transformation or evolution of branding. 

Whether you are running a startup trying to establish your brand or you have an established business trying to rejuvenate your aging brand, it is critical to take complete advantage of everything digital marketing technologies have to offer. Community participation, a diverse and collaborative approach involving the stakeholders, employees, and clients at every stage of your branding, can add value to your efforts. 

So, in this article, we will walk you through the purpose of branding and the components you should take care of while strategizing the branding process. Most importantly, as we wind up, you will also agree to the fact that a diverse and collaborative branding approach can unfold its potential positively.

What is Branding? 

Branding is an ongoing process or effort undertaken by businesses to create and establish a distinctive identity of the products and services in the minds of their target audience. It is a strategic approach that allows them to distinguish themselves from others by building a positive perception through unique logos, designs, or themes that become synonymous with the company name. 

Enter E-Commerce platforms and e-commerce software solutions that digitize the branding process. 

Ever since e-commerce platform giants like Amazon, eBay, or Walmart have made their presence felt in the vast online marketplace, the concept and approach to branding have undergone a drastic transition where the focus has drifted more towards creating your unique style, building robust customer relationships, and improving product quality. 

But is that all why these popular e-commerce platforms crafted successful brand strategies one after the other, leading to their enhanced trustworthiness? Well, there is more to add to their stories. 

If you meticulously observe their branding strategies, you will note that brands like Amazon or eBay have not only focused on providing a matchless customer experience and creating a compelling brand story or product diversification but emphasized following a collaborative approach to managing their brand strategies. 

In this blog, we will discuss in detail why diverse collaborative approaches are critical while branding products and services. But first, let’s briefly discuss what branding strategy is and the different types of branding strategies.

What is a Branding Strategy? 

“Building a brand is like playing chess. You need to understand your opponents, then work out a viable strategy and plan a few steps ahead before you make any move.”

- Royce Yuen, Author of the book “Decoding Branding”

A branding strategy is a long-term plan or a holistic approach using which a business aims to accomplish a specific goal and present its products or services to customers in such a way that helps to build a distinctive identity and preference in their minds. 

Branding is a process where your customers connect with your product or service. Brands should strategize to be where their customers are at the right time and with the best approach at the moment. Brands that stay true to their users or ideals are the ones that can sustain.

Brands need to be distinctive, consistent, and relevant.

Critical Brand Charteristics

Core Branding Elements  

You must consider various critical brand elements to create a successful branding strategy. These include defining the -

Brand Purpose

Brand purpose or mission is the reason for your existence and informing the consumers that your aim is not just earning profit from the products or services. The brand purpose adds value to both customers and society, helping to establish an emotion between the brand and the customer. 

Brand Promise

Brand Promise is the value or experience a customer expects from your brand while interacting with the company. It helps to create substantial brand value. Brand Promise ultimately focuses on what you deliver to your consumers. 

Brand Voice

Brand Voice is a vital element that focuses on what and how you communicate with your targeted customers. Brand voice must be distinct, reflecting the company's values and standing apart from the crowd. 

Brand Positioning

Every company aims to create a positive impression of its brand in customers’ minds. Brand positioning helps you position your brand as a favorable and credible identity to consumers, which distinguishes your company from the rest. 

Brand Design 

Brand design is creating a specific identity for your brand by using a set of design elements, such as logo, shape, color, theme line, graphics, animation, topography, illustrations, icons, and much more. It includes audio and visual components, images, layout, pattern, etc. 

Brand Awareness 

Brand awareness is a marketing concept that informs companies about how much consumers are aware or familiar with their brand. Creating brand awareness campaigns through different platforms helps in promoting products and services.

Brand Equity  

Brand awareness helps to create brand equity wherein a company derives a premium value for a product or service with a recognizable name. Brand equity is created by providing positive and seamless customer experiences. 

Brand Vibe 

Brand vibe is the sentiment or emotion that a brand captures on various platforms, such as social media, websites, and more. Brand vibes are related to understanding the desires, aspirations, and interests of consumers you wish to influence. 

You must see that all these brand elements are effectively communicated with the end customer.

Types of Branding Strategies 

Different Types of Branding Strategies

A business can select a specific type of branding strategy depending on its target audience, the industry domain it serves, and the specific message it wants to convey to its target audience. A few popular brand strategy types include

Co-Branding

In Co-branding, two or more popular brands align and enter a strategic partnership to promote a product or service. One of the essential components of co-branding is that both companies share a common brand objective and mission with similar target audiences. Both brands help positively influence each other and create plans to enhance business prospects.

One of the successful co-branding examples is that of Starbucks and Spotify, where the renowned global multi-chain coffeehouse teamed up with popular music streaming platform Spotify to build a music ecosystem that augmented the customer coffee brewing experience.

Product Branding

When a company wishes to create a distinct identity for a product through a unique design, logo, color, and experience, it selects a product branding strategy. It allows the customers to distinguish the product quickly.

Example: Customers can differentiate Nike from Adidas through its logo and symbol.

Corporate Branding 

Corporate branding involves a company's core values or mission statement that it offers to its customers and its employees. It reflects the company’s persona about how it represents itself to the world. The branding strategy focuses not only on marketing a single product but promoting an entire company as a whole. 

The best example of corporate branding is Apple. People are willing to buy iPhones, Mac Notebooks, iPods, etc. because they crave Apple products. 

Service Branding 

Service branding aims to augment the customer experience by providing optimal and best-in-class services that set your brand apart from the competition. It helps to boost the trust in the brand in the minds of target groups. 

Example: FedEx is a popular e-commerce, transportation, and business services company that has established its dominance in the shipping industry. Also, various companies providing on-demand services, such as cab booking, online food delivery, laundry services, etc., are categorized within service branding. 

Personal Branding 

When you frame brand strategies for an individual person to create a public image and tell the audience that person is personal branding, this type of branding strategy helps shape public perception and positively impacts a particular profession. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, renowned Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi, and popular New York Times Best Selling Author Neil Patel are all examples of personal branding. 

Retail Branding 

Creating branding strategies for your retail outlet helps you to make your brand global using different platforms. Also, it improves customer engagement, brand awareness, consistency, and identity. Retail Branding aims to improve customer experience when they arrive at your store for shopping through better layouts, lighting, music, and overall ambiance. 

IKEA and Walmart have successfully implemented retail management software, enabling them to establish their brand identity, mitigate supply chain issues, revolutionize the retail sector, and provide a seamless customer experience. 

Online Branding 

Online branding is one of the popular branding strategies where businesses use different online mediums or channels to get a prominent place in the market. These channels include social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, websites, or e-commerce platforms. 

Most companies are involved in some online branding, with a plethora of options available today. 

Geographic and Cultural Branding 

Though geographic and cultural branding is diverse from each other, they do have a connection. Geographical branding focuses on selling a product or service within a specific area or attracting people due to its geographic association. 

For example, the logo of the Statue of Liberty is embossed on a Starbucks coffee mug. 

On the other hand, cultural branding mainly focuses on promoting a country's or region's cultural elements.

Branding for B2B, B2C & D2C 

B2B Branding 

B2B branding is a brand marketing strategy that focuses not merely on creating a logo, a stylish icon, choosing vibrant colors, or building a company website but combines all the crucial branding elements, including visual, verbal, and emotional attributes that place a company apart from the competition. B2B branding is creating a distinct identity for an organization.

The latest trends, such as data-driven branding, immersive branding, inclusivity & diversity, brand activism, and more further drive B2B branding. 

B2B branding helps a brand cut through its category, ensuring greater trust and loyalty of the customers. It also draws the attention of brand evangelists, who become strong advocators.B2B branding reduces the sales cycle and decreases sensitivity to price hikes.

One of the viable examples of B2B branding is IBM, one of the oldest established IT companies with a global presence. The company offers wide-ranging cloud-based products and services, IT infrastructure, blockchain, analytics, and many more. 

B2C Branding 

B2C branding is a strategy that involves promoting a company’s vision or purpose in addition to its products and services. The groundwork of a B2C strategy starts with establishing solid and clear communication with the target audience to articulate the brand message. It becomes pivotal for brand managers to interact with customers at various brand touchpoints. 

B2C branding also focuses on improving the company’s persona and creating plans to boost customer interaction and engagement. It plays a vital role in crafting marketing campaigns and helping companies develop a brand story, which can translate into increased sales. 

But B2C branding has undergone a massive transformation in recent times. In the present scenario, B2C brands must do something other than outdo the competition with attractive product designs, hefty discounts, or an online advertising campaign. They need to walk the extra mile by building long-term customer relationships and loyalty with high brand attractiveness. It helps to improve customer retention and high recommendations for the brand. 

All top-notch e-commerce platforms, like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, H&M, etc., are viable examples of B2C branding. 

D2C Branding

D2C (Direct consumer) branding is an effective strategy in which manufacturing brands or companies build products or services and sell or distribute them directly to consumers without involving a third party, such as retailers, wholesalers, or conventional distributors.

Collaborating with customers through proper channels is one of the most significant aspects of the D2C branding strategy. Currently, most D2C brands use e-commerce websites or mobile applications to sell their products. Besides that, top social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., have also become popular channels to reach the target consumers directly. Customers also get the leverage to buy their preferred products at cost-effective prices. 

D2C brands must bank upon good reviews and testimonials. Also, creating effective SEO and PPC strategies can be an added advantage. Adopting next-generation technologies, such as AI-based chatbots helps to enhance customer interaction. 

Examples of D2C branding include Stitch Fix, Dollar Shave Club, Amway, Oriflame, and AvonCasper who all manage to sell directly to customers via social media channels and through direct sales representatives.

What is Collaborative Branding?

Collaborative branding is an effective brand management strategy carried out through carefully coordinated marketing activities to accomplish a common goal and boost brand exposure. Brands get constructed with time, with the involvement of the consumers, technologies, employees, stakeholders, and associated partners precisely termed “Brand co-creation.” This open participatory approach towards branding is collaborative branding.

Talking about achieving a common goal can be anything; developing and launching an exclusive product or service, brand promotion, generating more leads, and influencers. The modus operandi of collaborative branding is to provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace and formulate cost-effective marketing and sales tactics that prove beneficial for all parties involved.

How do a brand prepare for a more diverse and collaborative approach?

  • Acknowledge users in the co-production of brand value
  • Leverage, support, and encourage the participation of brand co-creators
  • Collaborate and engage with a broader network
  • Congregate with different user groups and communities to gather participation
  • A clear orientation to innovation in relation to the customer’s association with the brand
  • A clear focus on the innovative tools

Did You Know? 

“Based on a survey, 71% of the customers enjoy co-branding partnerships and develop a positive attitude towards them.”

Customers contribute towards the brand ideology!

The Essential Components of Collaborative Branding

  1. Co-creating events - running contests, organizing freebee fairs, conducting a survey, initiating a poll, and competition.
  2. Co-creating content - Asking questions, digital communication
  3. Collaborating with influencers via social media 
  4. Collaborating with Companies Sharing the Same Brand Value 
  5. Collaborating with Companies Sharing the Type of Target Audience 
  6. Collaborate with Companies Easy to Communicate With  

Co-Creating Events 

One of the most critical elements of collaborative branding is co-creating events where brands can organize freebee exhibitions, conduct surveys, initiate a poll, or run different contests to collaborate with consumers or end users. Co-created events also provide an opportunity for consumers to submit their ideas or design regarding a product or service. The company gathers the best innovative ideas to create products that meet their expectations. 

Co-Creating Content 

It is a viable marketing strategy in which brands or companies collaborate with third parties, influencers, or other firms to craft engaging and relevant content. The co-creation includes all types of content genres, such as blogs, and articles, preparing questionnaires for audience surveys, videos, infographics, and all forms of digital communication. 

Collaborating with Influencers via Social Media 

Brands can look to connect with the right influencer through various social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or a popular YouTuber who has millions of followers in different ways. These include sponsor content, user-generated content campaigns, influencer gifting, giveaways, brand ambassadorships, and more. 

Companies Sharing the Same Brand Value 

When collaborating with another brand, choosing a company that shares the same brand value as yours becomes essential. It means that messages from both brands should come together even if they serve two different industries or domains. 

Collaborating with Companies Sharing the Type of Target Audience 

It is a viable decision to collaborate with companies with similar target audiences. This helps you target the same market or demographics as you share complementary marketing goals. 

Collaborate with Companies Easy to Communicate With

It is better to align with a business partner who is easy to communicate with. Hence, the company should be accessible even if you are working remotely.

Types of Brand Collaboration 

 Types of Brand Collaborations

We have already discussed the different types of branding strategies above. Now, it’s time to throw some light on different types of brand collaboration that are highlighted below.

  • Influencer Co-branding

Most brands are adopting influencer co-branding strategies where they look to collaborate with the right influencer or content creator on different social media platforms.

Example- A popular e-commerce fashion platform Revolve collaborated with famous American fashion blogger and influencer Aimee Song to launch a new clothing brand Song of Style. 

  • Customer Co-Creation 

Brands are involving their potential customers while planning to launch a new product or service, which has introduced the concept of customer co-creation. Here customers are required to give their ideas, inputs, and feedback during the product development and decision-making process. 

Example- Popular brands like Unilever, IKEA, Sodexo, Heineken, Starbucks, etc., have already implemented customer co-creation practices successfully.

  • Product-based co-branding 

When multiple brands from diverse companies come together to build a specific product of their identities, product-based co-branding occurs. 

  • Parallel co-branding 

Here, multiple brands collaborate to form a combined brand. 

  • Ingredient co-branding 

Ingredient co-branding helps to improve brand reputation. In this co-branding type, one brand's ingredients or components are blended with another. Each of the products selected for mixing has specific patented qualities. 

  • Communication-based co-branding 

When different companies form a business alliance to communicate or promote their communication-based co-branding jointly occurs. It enhances brand awareness and resource sharing, leverages endorsement opportunities, and allows them to share ad costs. 

  • Same company co-branding 

Under this co-branding, a company providing two or more brands simultaneously promotes them. It may include a large company and its subsidiaries. 

For example- Adidas and Nike manufacture sportswear and equipment under the same brand. 

  • National to local co-branding 

The co-branding strategy becomes effective when a small business, retailer, or start-up collaborates with a large brand or a renowned e-commerce platform to increase brand awareness and business revenue.

Example- E-commerce giants like Amazon or eBay collaborate with small local dealers and retailers, allowing them to sell their products online against a set commission. 

  • Joint venture or composite co-branding 

In joint or composite co-branding, two or more renowned brands join hands to either develop a new product or improve an existing one that didn’t click well before. 

For example, British Airways and CitiBank partnered with one another, automatically allowing CitiBank users to register with the British Airways Executive club.

  • Multi-sponsor co-branding 

Here, two or more brands or companies enter a strategic alliance in technology, sales, and marketing, leading to multi-sponsor co-branding. 

Example- Microsoft has recently partnered with Meta to provide immersive experiences.

Top Successful Examples of Collaborative Branding 

Examples of Successful Collaborative Branding

Ariana Grande & Givenchy 

One of the best examples of influencer collaborative branding is between Givenchy and Ariana Grande. French luxury fashion and perfume brand announced its collaboration with popular American singer Ariana Grande. This successful influencer collaboration has allowed the brand to accumulate an impressive MIV (Media Impact Value) of $25.13 million with a few top-performing posts on Instagram like Focus and In My Head, and most importantly ARIVENCHY trending as the top-performing keyword for Givenchy Ariana. 

IKEA & its Customers 

Various popular brands are also co-creating with their potential customers. One such viable example is that of renowned Swedish furniture and home decor retailer IKEA co-creating with its consumers by launching a digital platform ‘Co-Create IKEA’. IKEA wanted to encourage all its customers to create new products by urging them to provide fresh ideas and suggestions. The brand also collaborated with Gen Z consumers, including college and university students, apart from innovation labs and running Bootcamps. 

Apple & Nike 

Tech giant and iPhone manufacturer Apple partnered with the US top-notch brand sportswear and equipment producer Nike in 2016 and launched the popular Nike Sport Band with the release of the Apple Watch Series 2. The equipment captures vital data like the runner's pace, distance covered, heart rate, etc. The product has various features, such as a real-time GPS, dual-core processor, brighter display, water resistance, and Sri command. 

Spotify & Uber 

Music streaming application Spotify has collaborated with the top cab booking and ride-hailing app Uber to streamline the customer experience and journey during the ride. Spotify will create an exclusive soundtrack for its premium users, and they need to integrate that Uber to listen to their favorite tracks while traveling. 

BMW & Louis Vuitton

Luxury car manufacturer BMW has rightly teamed up with luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton manufacturing bags, leather goods, shoes, etc., to create a customized set of four pieces of luggage, including suitcases and bags that fit best with the BMW i8 model. 

Go Pro & Red Bull

One of the best successful brand collaborations that have taken place is between Go Pro and Red Bull. Both companies promote high adventure and hard-hitting sports. So, the Go Pro camera captures the action-packed videos of athletes and adventure lovers, while Red Bull helps to run and sponsor the stunts and jaw-dropping clips. 

Levi’s & Pinterest 

Top-notch jeans manufacturing company Levi Strauss & Co. collaborated with the popular social media platform Pinterest to create a personalized styling experience or provide customized insights based on user preferences. 

McDonald's & VAIN 

A popular Finnish clothing brand VAIN has collaborated with fast food giant McDonald’s to bring innovation and new designs using McDonald’s employees' uniforms. The company will transform uncycled garments into different attractive attires, such as mini skirts, slouchy hoodies, and others. The remixed workwear is being designed for fun purposes and can’t be worn as uniforms. 

Also, there are several other successful brand collaborations, such as Airbnb & Flipboard, Semrush & Surfer, IKEA & Asus, Apple & Mastercard, Amazon & American Express, and many more.

Diversity and Inclusion in Branding 

Companies of all sizes and types, including popular brands, have become strong advocates for diversity and inclusion while branding. According to Deloitte Insights, diversity and inclusion are helping companies win more Generation Z consumers, as the youngest generations prioritize and support brands that follow such practices. 

According to Microsoft Advertising, 69% of Gen Z said that they support brands that represent diversity with more authenticity. 

By diverse brands, we mean companies that identify the disparity within the subgroups of the target market. Diversity in branding helps brands understand societal and cultural changes occurring in customers and communities. 

Marketing experts view that diversity gets exhibited internally and externally within an organization while passing on the brand message and its advertisements. Through diverse branding, companies can define the brand voice and story, which are essential elements. 

When adopting a diverse approach to your brand, you should consider various pivotal factors, such as age, gender, sexual orientation, language, geographic location, education, religion, economic status, and many more. 

Viable Strategies for Diverse Branding Approach 

Now that you understand what diverse branding is, discussing some viable strategies for diverse branding approaches that create a win-win situation for all businesses is essential. 

Implement Diverse Practices in Actuality 

The first and foremost approach to diverse branding is convincing your audience that your brand embraces diversity practices. It helps you win the audience's trust and provides valuable insights and data that you can use to diversify your marketing campaigns. To achieve your end, you must understand the different brand diversities and plan how to represent them. 

Centralize the Data Insights 

One of the most effective strategies to diversify your branding efforts is critically understanding and analyzing the audience’s preferences and priorities based on various categories, such as age, gender, socio-economic status, etc. You need to gather as much data as possible by using next-generation tools, such as PoS Software or data analytics solutions, providing real-time relevant data. The tools help you understand the current market branding trends and conduct research before creating branding strategies. 

Using Inclusive Images & Languages 

Inclusive images and languages are crucial for creating diverse branding strategies as they significantly impact audience engagement and convey your brand message effectively. You must use inclusive language and images that properly represent diverse groups of audiences without being biased or excluding anyone. 

Don’t Use Tokenism 

Tokenism occurs when brands fail to understand their audiences and don’t make the required efforts to attract them. So, this goes without saying that you should avoid tokenism at all costs, which can become a setback for your brand. You should necessarily devote time to gain more knowledge about diverse audiences and be authentic in your diverse branding approach. 

Let the Customers Speak 

When creating diverse brand strategies, it becomes vital to let your customers speak out and give their valuable feedback on your products and services. And more importantly, you must listen to your customers to take the necessary steps. The target audience judges the brand and provides their verdict on whether the brand is practicing diversity in actual terms or not.

Benefits of Following a More Collaborative and Diverse Approach in Branding  

Advantages of Collaborative and Diverse Branding Approach

In today's global and interconnected business world, a diverse approach to branding can be incredibly beneficial for companies of all sizes. This approach helps to ensure that a brand's messaging, values, and mission are inclusive and representative of a wide range of perspectives and experiences.

Here, we highlight why your branding should follow a more diverse and collaborative approach. 

Building Trust and Credibility By Involving  Consumers 

One of the indispensable reasons why most brands, even the popular ones, are looking to collaborate with others and adopt a diverse approach is that it helps to create and consolidate consumers’ trust in the brand. And the most result-oriented approach to winning the customer's trust is by involving them proactively with the brand. This is the reason why customer co-creation has gained traction incredibly, encouraging several brands, including popular e-commerce platforms to adopt this strategy. 

Hence, customers prefer brands they believe in and align with their values. So, when a brand is involved in meaningful, engaging collaboration and diverse perspectives, it can show that it has become more responsive and efficiently caters to the requirements of wide-ranging audiences. It allows brands to build robust and lasting relationships with their prospective customers. 

Foster Innovation and Creativity With Technology

Brand partnerships and diversifications have upscaled and transcended to the next level with next-generation technologies, such as advanced marketing tools, artificial intelligence, machine learning, the internet of things, and many more. 

These disruptive technologies help companies and brands to monitor the quality of partnerships, track sales and marketing stats, changes in ROI, etc. For instance, if a brand implements an order management software system, it can gain real-time insights into all orders it receives from offline and online channels. Similarly, a SaaS-based platform helps to meet all industry standards effectively through automated solutions. 

To foster creativity, you can bring people together from diverse backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, etc., and tap into more extensive ideas and insights. Thus, you can generate fresh and unique ideas that set you apart from the competition. 

Promote a More Inclusive and Supportive Workplace Culture 

Another viable reason for brands to incorporate the practice of collaboration and diversity is that it promotes an inclusive and supportive workplace culture within an organization. When a brand values diverse and collaborative approaches, it creates a positive and inclusive environment. It fosters employee engagement and motivation to bring their ideas and perspectives to the table. It allows them to attract and retain top talent.

Opportunity to Explore New Channels and Reach More Audiences 

When a brand adheres to collaborative and diverse branding methods, it gets more opportunities to target new audiences, channels, and platforms to increase its customer base. Also, collaborative branding helps you get familiar with what other products your target audience is interested in. For online stores struggling to get website traffic, diverse and collaborative branding can become a boon as they can boost sales through partners’ assistance. 

For instance, online pharmacy stores using pharmacy software can collaborate with CRM solution providers to manage their customers more seamlessly and efficiently. 

Improved Reputation and Authentic Branding 

Brand collaboration and diversification enable companies to improve their reputation among customers and the marketplace. A diverse and inclusive brand gets a better chance to engage and retain more customers. It also becomes word of mouth for the brand. 

Also, collaborative and diverse approaches to branding create more authenticity by hosting live chats on social media platforms. To showcase the diversity, you can record live vlogs of your employees and show how they work at the workplace.

Sharing Experience, Technology, and Finance 

One of the most significant advantages of brand collaboration and implementing a diverse approach is that it allows them to share experiences of working on different projects, share technological expertise, and financial expenses when launching a new product or service or promoting brands. It helps to curb the overall cost, and both brands can achieve their common goals more efficiently in a much shorter time by sharing resources, strategies, workforce, and talent. 

Collaborative branding allows brands to cover all risk factors and share revenue or profits based on the partnership agreement. Co-branding encourages joint marketing efforts, content sharing, co-sponsorships, giveaways, and gifts.

Use Social media influencers & Account Takeovers

If a brand is keen on following a diverse and collaborative approach, it must make use of social media influencers and account takeovers intelligently. But the first and foremost task is to choose the right influencer who can become worthy and profitable for the brand. Here brands can adopt a few vital steps to collaborate with influencers, such as encouraging user-generated content, giveaway events, launching contests with influencers promoting them, and more. 

Account takeovers are one of the viable ways to collaborate with influencers. This is an effective brand promotion strategy in which the influencer posts content on the brand’s social media accounts directly. What does this mean? 

It means that the influencer has taken over the brand’s social media handles for a fixed time on their social media accounts to divert their followers in your brand’s direction. In short, the influencer creates content for your brand. 

For instance, influencer and author Aliza Eliazarov did an Instagram takeover for the popular chicken brand My Pet Chicken

Create Brand Ambassadors

Brand Ambassadors are different from social media influencers as they enter into a long-term commitment to promote your brand on different channels and platforms. They receive consistent payments from the brands to embody their values and act as their spokesperson. 

One of the biggest advantages of choosing a brand ambassador is that once they enter into an agreement with a particular brand, they cannot endorse its competitor, while a social media influencer is free to do so. This means their commitment to the brand is more loyal, authentic, and firm. 

For instance, Argentinian soccer icon Lionel Messi is the brand ambassador of several top-notch and big brands, such as BYJU’S, Adidas, Tata Motors, Pepsi, J&T Express, and many more. 

Take Advantage of Sponsors

Collaborating with sponsors can create a favorable environment for any brand. The brand receives financial support from a sponsor company for its promotion, which indeed proves beneficial for both companies, helping to create brand awareness and boost sales. 

Collaboration with sponsors allows brands to spread their message and reach their target audiences and niche markets directly. Brand sponsorships play a significant role in getting more exposure through influencer marketing. 

One can cite the example of ‘Sponsored Content’ as the most popular and used form of brand collaboration with sponsors or influencers. The influencer creates a post on social media platforms and brands pay them for the same. They can promote the brand on Instagram Reels or Instagram Stories, or sponsor a blog where they talk about the brand.

The Bottomline - Wrapping up the Discussion 

Overall, a diverse and collaborative approach to branding can be incredibly beneficial for companies of all sizes. It can build trust and credibility with consumers, foster innovation and creativity, and create a positive and inclusive workplace culture. By embracing diversity and collaboration, a brand can position itself for success in today's global and interconnected business world.

The advancements in digital marketing and disruptive technologies emerged, branding has become much more sophisticated and streamlined. The introduction of AI-based chatbots has simplified and enabled real-time customer interaction, with conversations becoming more humanized. Also, social media marketing and tools have taken branding to the next level, where customers have switched to smartphones, and mobile applications are shaping the future of brands. 

The spontaneous data flow has become a burning trend, allowing brands to invest more in cutting-edge solutions and innovative tools, like analytics software, CRM systems, subscription management software, and more.

Collaborative and diverse branding practices aren’t going anywhere soon, as more and more brands are getting ready to unleash their viable advantages. However, companies also need to realize that with time, customers’ expectations will further exceed; hence they must focus on forming formidable and long-term partnerships that help them venture into new opportunities, and keep their business afloat. Paying attention to inclusive and diverse branding approaches also becomes critical at the same time to winning the consumer’s trust and implementing cultural diversity into the organization.

Paul Richards
Paul Richards

Paul  Richards is a Senior Content Creator at GoodFirms, an IT research and review firm with 8+ years of rich experience. An ardent sports enthusiast and travel freak, he loves to share his ideas and knowledge on everything technology, software systems, digital marketing, and the latest industry trends. An avid reader, he likes to explore and browse various websites to accumulate more information on different topics.

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