The Benefits and and Risks of Strategic Brand Collaboration
This paper explains the benefits and risks of brand collaboration from a strategic perspective. It integrates the benefits and risks with co branding that previously lay scattered across poorly integrated domains. It is argued that brand managers can have three general benefits from brand collaboration functional, emotional and self expressive benefits. However, it is also argued that beyond the more obvious benefits, brand collaboration also involves risks for both the parties involved. First, there is a risk with loss of control over the brand associations; second, there is a risk with loss of control and lost focus in the target groups; third, image dilution through overexposure; fourth, a lost focus in the target group; fifth, a risk that one of the brands in the alliance becomes generic; and sixth, less leverage points for the involved brands in the future.