Small Business: Brand partnerships - Richards Partners

Julian Smith, director of strategy at Richards Partners.

Small business editor Caitlin Sykes this week interviews a handful of small business owners about how they use brand partnerships.

Julian Smith is director of strategy at Richards Partners - a brand, marketing and design agency.

How do you define a brand partnership, and what are some of the different forms they can take?

A brand partnership is when two entities see value in collaborating to achieve outcomes they couldn't achieve by themselves. There are lots of different types of brand partnerships. Brands can partner for product outcomes, for example, like Lewis Road Creamery partnering with Whittaker's, or they can partner for sponsorship or cause-related reasons, like Air New Zealand does with Antarctica New Zealand. And brands can also partner to achieve better outcomes through the value chain, for example Icebreaker and New Zealand Merino.

I think people often consider brand partnerships as something that big brands, which have a lot of resource, put together with other big brands. But what are some of the benefits of these kinds of partnerships for smaller businesses, which are often particularly short on resource?

Smaller businesses can partner with other similar sized companies as a way to compete with larger competitors. So by partnering through the value chain small business brands can benefit quite significantly by gaining skills, know how and resources from others that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Or a brand can also lean on the strength of a bigger brand to leverage their shared values to a larger audience - one example is men's tailoring brand Crane Brothers, and Jaguar. For Jaguar, Murray Crane represents a great way of communicating style for their brand and in cases like these the benefits to the smaller business are in brand exposure, and also the association with the strength of the larger brand.

Creative brand partnerships are another way that small brands can gain some quite significant new exposure, and also allow people to experience small brands in a way that's new and interesting. The Urbis Designday, for example, is one event that showcases a number of these kinds of brand partnerships each year; one example this year was a collaboration where design practice Ctrl Space created an environment using recyclable polyester furnishings created by local company Autex.

On the other hand, what are some pitfalls that smaller businesses can fall into when entering into these kinds of partnerships that you think people need to be aware of?

Smaller brands need to understand that by collaborating with other brands they're aligning their brand to the other's values. So it's really important that first up they consider what their shared values are. What are the differences in terms of how customers see each brand? Are there significant differences, and are the brands positioned in similar spaces in the minds of customers?

Smaller brands collaborating to create new products should also be investigating the other brand's supply chain and their way of doing business, and also their brand culture. Beyond the product outcome, these are things that are going to be researched and considered by their customers, so it's absolutely important smaller businesses know what they're aligning themselves with.

What are three tips you'd have for a small business owner wanting to establish a good partnership for their brand with another?

1. Talk to your customers first so you can understand what needs they have that you're not currently meeting.

2. Write a problem statement. What problem are you trying to solve with the brand partnership?

3. Think creatively. Who can you partner with whose brand values and positioning aligns with your vision for your brand and meets the customer opportunity? It may be another company or it may be a creative talent; keep your mind open.