The Creativ Brief: What is a Marketing Partnership?
Partnership is a nebulous term.
In legal terms, a partnership is an equity split between two or more parties.
In sales, partnership refers to the closing of a business transaction.
In marketing, partnership refers to strategic alignment of two separate companies.
In all cases, a partnership is the union of two or more entities for mutual benefit. To identify great partnerships, identify individual strengths in entities that compliment the other.
Most have seen a promotional partnership, where uncompetitive products promote one another to drive awareness and sales. Your happy meal comes with the latest Disney movie characters. Apple and T-Mobile split media costs for the new iPhone on the T-Mobile network. Nick Minaj features Aqua while promoting the Barbie movie.
Complimentary, individual strengths. Mutual benefit. Partnership.
3 Stories Dominating Media and Tech Headlines
TikTok now has search. Search ads became available to advertisers this past week on Tiktok. This allows marketers to opt-in or out around certain targeted keywords on the platform. This differs than current ads on TikTok in which videos appear in-feed on user’s personalized “For You page”.
Why it Matters: TikTok has slowly clawed into Meta’s social sphere and now appears to be taking on some Google-like functions. Search still functions as content discovery on the app; however, new applications in e-commerce could add interesting functions for marketers in the future.
Evidence points to Wagner chief Prigozhin assassination by the Kremlin. A primarily U.S. intelligence assessment indicated an explosive device in Prigozhin’s private jet was the cause of the crash that killed all 10 people on board.
Why it matters: This story is wild. Putin expressed condolences to the victims despite the ‘serious mistakes’ by Prigozhin. The coverage of the Russian media was minimal despite widespread coverage in the West. Perspective on state run vs. private media.
More tech regulations in Europe. EU officials passed a Digital Services Act that overhauls Europe’s rules, making tech companies more accountable for content created by users and on their platform. Content moderation failures could result in fines of up to 6% of a company’s annual global revenue.
Why it Matters: In order to encourage innovation, the laws only apply to platforms that have more than 45 million users. The response comes as election interference and misinformation become increasingly glaring problems of social media’s lackluster content moderation.
Stat of the Week - Billboard Top 100
Visual by Wes Morton
It’s common practice in the music industry to break new artists by pairing them with a larger, more established one with a complimentary audience.
Partnering two established artists provides both with extended audiences to grow fan bases, sell more records, and book more shows.
One Fun Thing - Walk This Way, RUN DMC + Aerosmith
Legendary producer Rick Rubin knew the value of partnerships. In 1986, he encouraged RUN DMC to listen to Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”.
The resulting partnership became RUN DMC’s biggest hit on Billboard and reignited Aerosmith’s career a decade after the original track was released a decade earlier in 1977.
Two different audiences, one partnership, leading to an iconic cover with massive upside for both groups involved.
Complimentary mutual benefit.