The latest meeting of the Marketing Café at MIM-Kyiv was dedicated to the effects of the collaboration on brands. Olena Havisnka, Visa’s communication director in 17 countries, and Ivetta Delikatna, partner of the ECOMM communication consultancy shared their experiences.

According to Ivetta, everything started with partnership marketing or an offer from two brands packed in one product, campaign, or activity. Participants were represented equally and each offer complemented the other one. The word “collaboration” appeared when stars endorsing brands had launched their own media presence, e.g. Facebook account or Instagram.  Why collaborate? Our experts offered several reasons:

Better brand awareness
When brands bring forces together, they also bring their followers. Thus, brand audiences double.
Profitability
Profits grow with increasing the number of information channels and audiences.

More knowledge and resources
Collaborations work well when the resources of the parties complement each other. For example, charity works with apparel brands to have more people exposed to their clothes.
New audiences
Collaboration is a good way to make niche brands more accessible or present new ideas for the audiences.
Highlighting certain features
Collaborations allow brands to draw attention to various features or elements earlier “unseen” for the audience.

How to minimize risks in a “person - brand” partnership?
If you work with an influencer, do not forget that people’s behaviors are unpredictable. Bad behaviors often result in reputational and monetary losses. Even small things may provoke a public outcry, Ivetta explains. She recommends vetting potential partners before entering into collaborations.

Olena Havinska presented a “DNA Visa” collaboration. She spoke about collaborations for social causes and support of the small and medium businesses. She also discussed their project of support to the hearing-impaired people.

An employee started the project by pointing out that banks do not have special facilities for such people. Olena said that Visa helps bank employees to learn sign language.

Olena’s checklist of successful partnerships includes:

• Study your potential partner before entering partnerships. Your partner should not outshine your brand;
• Agree on the brands’ KPIs before launching activities;
• Be sure that partners’ values match;
• Check the importance of the topic and its alignment with collaboration goals;
• Monitor motivation of people participating in the collaboration;
• Do not neglect administrative components such as timeline, written KPIs, etc. Use Agile and focus on the social and media part of the project.

After the presentations, Marketing Café participants developed their own collaboration projects and presented them.