Strategic Application of Dual-
similar physical features and value promises which
Branding in Brand Building Process
AUTHOR DETAILS
Sarvesh Soni
Assistant Professor, SEMCOM, Vallabh
Vidyanagar, Anand
E-mail: sarveshsoni@rocketmail.com, Tel:
+91-9173955831
ABSTRACT
The market is filled with brands with very
similar physical features, attributes and value
propositions. Moreover, media cost and dilution of
above the line advertising effect force the marketer to
search for newer option for creating an edge over
competitors. In attempt to build up a strong brand image
marketers are using Dual-Branding as a strategic
option. Consumers attitude towards a particular brand
alliance influences their subsequent attitude towards the
individual brands that comprises that alliance. The
ability to pair brand images is likely to be more effective
when brands have something in common and relate to
each other in mind of the customer. Some of the popular
forms of Dual Branding or Co-branding are ingredient
co-branding, corporate co-branding and multiple
sponsors co-branding. The paper throws some light on
cognitive principles for using Dual-Branding strategy
with guidelines for creating a favourable brand image in
the Indian Market.
Keywords: Dual-Banding, Co-branding, Brand
Association, Brand Alliance, ingredient co-
branding, corporate co-branding, multiple sponsor
co-branding.
1. OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study is to understand the
genesis of Co Branding strategy and to explore how
Co-Branding can be helpful for the partnered firms
in their brand building exercise.
2. INTRODUCTION
There are various strategic options available to a
marketer for building a strong brand in the market
place. It is difficult to develop a long term one way
strategy for a brand due to sameness in the market.
The market is flooded with products or brands with
makes the condition worse for the modern marketer,
there is a very high level of media clutter and
advertising is fast losing its effect over the
customers. The high cost of media and complexity
of consumer response to interactive media makes
the marketer to look for new alternatives for brand
management.
3. CO-BRANDING
Co-branding- also called dual branding, brand
alliance or brand bundling-occurs when two or
more existing brands are combined with into a joint
product or marketed together in same fashion
(Keller, 2005). An existing brand can in cash
association by linking itself to other brands from the
same or different company. It has made inroads into
nearly every industry, from automotive and high-
tech Internet companies to banking and fast food.
Creating or Modifying Identity for each other
The co-branding is a process where product is being
customised to match the need of specific brand with
minimum modification of technology, process or
modular functionality. Here designer and developer
both have to work together. Designers modify the
look and feel in order match the new company's
value offer. Developers add and remove product
functionality modules in order to meet specific
needs of the customer segments. The very base of
co-branding marketing strategy is related with
brand association phenomenon.
4. LOGIC OF CO-BRANDING
New product launches clearly identify the brands
that cooperated to create and market them. M & Ms
and Pillsbury invented a new cookie concept, and
Compaq and Mattel combined their respective
expertise to bring out a line of hi-tech, interactive
toys.
To maximise brand extension success rate, many
companies seek help from other brands, whose
establishment reputation in the new market might
prove decisive. For example Kelloggs co-branded
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 its cereals for health oriented adults with Health
Choice.
Image reinforcement may also be an objective of
co-branding. In the detergent industry, for instance,
famous white goods brands endorse particular
detergents and vice versa. Thus Ariel and whirlpool
recently launched a co-branded advertising
campaign, whose claim is The art of washing. By
this collaboration, Ariel seeks to reinforce its
market leader status and gain a more affective
image. As for whirlpool, the campaign bolsters its
European launching strategy, and creates a caring
image.
Co branding appears in sales promotion too. Nokia
has partnered with Yatra.com to offer free travel
vouchers with select Nokia Asha phones during Diwali
festival in 2012. Customer would get Yatra.com travel
vouchers worth of Rs. 4500 with purchase of Nokia
Asha 305, 308 and 311 Smartphone The voucher
consists of 4 domestic air ticket vouchers of Rs. 750
each and one Rs. 1500 hotel booking voucher.
Yatra.coms brand positioning is to create happy
travelers. Through this tie up with Nokia this
Diwali, we are aiming to create happy customers by
giving them an opportunity to travel with a bunch
of discount vouchers that will make it easy for them
to travel and meet their loved ones.
Capitalizing on synergies among a number of
brands is another co-branding objective. Ra.One the
first of its kind landmark film. The films potential
and additional revenue streams making the
marketing spend on Ra.One have been subsidized
considerably through major brand tie-ups in excess
of 25 brands. These include Sony PlayStation,
YouTube, Nerolac, McDonalds, Western Union
Money Transfer, UTV Indiagames, Videocon,
Nokia, Coke, ESPN Star Sports and Cinthol
amongst others.
The most important aim of co-branding is through
combination of two brands in order to attract more
customers and to maximize the power and prestige
that each brand has to offer.
5. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO CO-
BRANDING
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There are several approaches in trying to define
different forms of co-branding. There are four
different forms of co-branding as follows:
Ingredient co-branding
According to Kotler & Keller (2011), a special case
of co-branding is ingredient branding, which creates
brand equity for materials, components, or parts that
are necessarily contained within other branded
products, Ingredient Branding is more recent
strategy, which fits under the umbrella of Co
branding. The Intel Corporation demonstrated the
marketing possibilities of Ingredient Branding for
both component manufacturers, as well as the
manufacturers of finished goods (Kotler,2010). A
representative example could be recognized when
Maruti advertises that it uses MRF tires.
Same-company co-branding
Sometime a product brand associate itself with the
manufacturer of the same product. It can be seen
when corporate brand is enjoying higher prestige &
awareness in the market. A Titan watch from the
house of TATAs or VOLTAS ACs advertises as a
TATA product is an example of this kind.
Corporate co-branding
Joint venture co-branding is yet another & common
form of dual branding. In the past Hero Honda and
today Maruti Suzuki are examples of this kind. We
are going to experience more number of joint
venture branding in near future.
Multiple-sponsors
Finally, there is multiple-sponsor form of co-brands
as in the case of HCL computers with hardware
alliance of HP, processor alliance of Intel and
software alliance of Microsoft. Production
Company Red Chillies Entertainment marketed the
 movie Ra-One as an event, and the promotions
began 10 months before the launch. Brands like
Volkswagen and Kingfisher chose in-film
promotions; others like Coca-Cola and Horlicks
used on-pack graphics of Ra-One to grab eyeballs.
Hero Cycles, Sony Play Station and Gitanjali
Group launched special edition products
capitalise on the hype of Ra-One.
Silent Co-branding
Not all alliance has been made visible. In photocopy
market, many products sold by Canon are actually
made by Richoh . To conquer the iced tea market,
Nestle and Coca-Cola decided to unite against
Unilevers Lipton range. Nestle would create and
market the product, and Coca-Cola would distribute
it. The product, called Nestea, is not co-branded,
though-Coca-Cola Company gets only a small
mention on the back of the packaging.
6. GUIDELINES FOR DUAL BRANDING
OR CO-BRANDING STRATEGY
As natural with every marketing strategy, even with
co-branding it is difficult to expect only positive
results.
The partner brand should be reliable and
responsible.
Both companies should represent the partnering
company without any possible scandals and public
relations problem and the financial strength is very
important. To be more precise, before choosing a
branding partner, it is necessary to consider that the
existing brand usually awoke some association in
the past.
Identify the original associations clinched to the
brands.
It is important to identify the original associations
of brands, which are to be capitalised to form, an
alliance. There is a wide range of associations. Most
common are the attributes of the product or benefits
from it, but many times are brands also associated
with the celebrities, events that have been linked to
to it. The best example of a brand is Pepsi in Indian
market. The brand is already associated with the
celebrities that have endorsed it (from Amitabh to
Sachin up to Ranbir Kapoor), the Cricket series,
which Pepsi sponsors, the concept of refreshment,
certain music that has been used in the
advertisements, the colour blue -red.
There should be a common stimuli shared by
both the brands.
The ability to pair two brand image is likely to be
more effective when brands have something in
common and relate to each other in the mind of the
customer. When the target customers of both
companies match together and stimuli are similar,
individuals are more likely to make the connection
between them and it may be easier to formulate
associations between them. The buyers for spices
and ready to eat snack is totally different. This is
why the association of Ramdev brand spices with
Balaji Wafers has gone failed where Ramdev had
tried to give Balajis ready eat wafer packet free as
a part of its sales promotion tactics in March,2011.
Buying situation for both brands should be
same.
Consider the recent ads for Apple iPhone 4, in
which Aircel and Airtel played respective cameos.
Experts saw this as an opportunistic move on the
part of the telecom players as being associated with
Apple was to have a positive rub-off effect on their
own brand value. Research suggests that products
that have similar buying situations and bundled
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 together are more favourable to consumers and
consumers will pay more for them than products
that do not belong together. To combine two
completely different partners could cause into
failure. If a banking industry tries to associate itself
with a cartoon character might not be successful at
all.
Exposure of Co-Branding in advertisement
It is recommended to repeat the co-branding
connection several times by using co-branding in
advertising. Advertisers should be aware of special
aspects of this strategy like timing of the co-
branding presentation and ordering of the images in
order to achieve maximum brand association. Once
favourable stimuli were created, they last. For
instance Dells association with Intel processors.
7. CONCLUSION
In co-branded communication, one brand may tend
to be slightly stronger than the other, but there
should be some synergy between the two in terms
of the segments their target audiences lie in. Co-
branding is a dynamic branding strategy and its
significance is growing especially with the
increasing importance of Internet as a medium.
Although the benefits of co-branding are immense
especially in a complex market like that of India but
there are also some risks which are inherent in the
concept.
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