Plan B, Madness and the Power of Partnership

A trip on Tuesday night to Warchild’s Pub Landlord Jukebox at the Royal Festival Hall got me thinking about the power of collaborations and how they can help brands cut through the morass of functional and sales-oriented marketing. The delight of the audience when Plan B took the stage to sing ‘Our House’ with Madness and Al Murray (http://bit.ly/aHBx26) really brought home the power of partnership.

The Grammys and the Oscars have recognized for years that unlikely combinations of stars and musicians make for very compelling viewing – Britney-Madonna? Eminem-Elton John? Stars know instinctively that borrowing the equity of similar or perhaps more contemporary contemporaries can build their own credibility and power.

But the principles of the ‘smart collaboration’ and the cut-through these achieve apply equally to brands, whether it’s Nike working with its athletes (I hardly need to post a link here), Hermes teaming up with Bugatti to make this: http://bit.ly/3102YC, Panerai making a watch in honour of its internet fanbase (http://bit.ly/dyk40e) or Garmin teaming up with City AM to get the City (of London) running: http://bit.ly/cO088s.

Ultimately collaborations create buzz, capture imaginations and get the blogosphere and the media talking.

The best example out there of a brand which uses collaborations to create news has to be BMW. From working with Sennheiser to make branded earphones (http://bit.ly/d7hAON) and Embraer and Dassault for aircraft interiors to partnering with Jeff Koons on an ‘Art Car’ (http://bit.ly/aLqpU9) or Sirena to make espresso machines, the brand totally understands that working with others that have either similar or wildly different attitudes not only bursts them out of category to appeal to new audiences but also generates huge amounts of online and offline news.

Partnerships and collaborations are the ultimate in news and the key to unlocking online marketing potential and buzz: brands who recognize this are the ones who will win the ‘share of voice’ war both online and offline.