Find your perfect match

By the time they reach the age of 65, consumers will have been exposed to some 2,000,000 TV commercials in their lives. On top of this, we now see 400,000 new blogs appearing every day, in addition to the nearly 50 billion internet pages we now are able to access. No wonder you can't remember what you saw advertised last night. So, how do brand-builders enable consumers to cut through the clutter?

The answer is simple: distribution. In the past, brands like Coca-Cola fought head-to-head with rivals, like Pepsi, to establish the fastest possible distribution strategy. Now these distribution strategies have been transferred from the physical world to the soft world. That's right, cyberspace is the battleground for distribution contests. But what can brands learn from this? Until now, few infant brands, those in the process of being created, have had the maturity to consider brand identity beyond themselves. Much like the egocentric perspective from which toddlers see the world, brands in creation did not consider what types of other brands they might like to be associated with. Classic brand building is all about identifying and expressing values, the selling proposition, and the audience. This model excludes one essential component: association.

Which brands should your brand depend on through its 'life'? Which brands can help your brand grow? In a world where information overload has become virtually unavoidable in our lives, consumer's 'ad-filters' have had to adapt and have become impenetrable enough to confound the most earnest messages of most brands. The result is, we simply can't remember advertising details. We filter the clutter and maintain a grasp on bigger pictures and concepts. So, other brands may be the key to your brand's survival, because a brand acting alone is unlikely to secure the attention it needs to rise above the cacophony of competition.

The trick is to find complementary brands, not competitor ones. Identify brands or services which enhance your customers' experience of your brand or service. For example, consider FedEx's teaming up with Kinko, the printer service. The partnership makes sense, and it enables an enhanced customer experience of both brands. It offers Kinko's customers to take delivery of their print jobs 'just in time'. The complementary alliance not only adds extra value to the customer experience, but gives FedEx visibility in all Kinko's stores, and promotes Kinko throughout the FedEx customer community - a community which is prepared to pay a premium price for a premium, last-minute service.

But the opportunities for partnership are many. Here's what to do to hone down the choices and identify your brand ally:

1. Write down your brand's core values in two columns. Fill one column with the words your customers associate with your brand. Fill the other with the values you would like your customers to associate with your brand.

2. Now draw a box and inside write down the type of service or product your brand is currently offering its customers. Around all four sides add the types of services or products which your customers would typically use in association with their consumption - either before, during or after - of your service. Now ask yourself this simple but important question: which of those services would make your customers' lives easier, yet not compete with your core business? For example, if you sell antique paintings online, should you team up with a courier company that specializes in transporting fragile artwork? Or with an insurance company that offers premium cover during transportation? Or with a company that specializes in hanging works? The possibilities are endless.

3. List all the companies and services you feel would complement your product or service, then describe the benefits your customers would gain from them and the benefit your brand would gain from the partnership. Rank these services from 1-10, making 10 the measure of a perfect partnership.

4. It's now time for a value match. Revisit the answers you gave under point 1 and determine which of the companies you've listed represent complementary or similar values. It's essential to identify a value match as this is what will help ensure your brand remains well maintained and is not jeopardized by your partners. The brands or companies with the highest score will be the ones which offer the strongest value match with your brand. These will deserve your consideration as partners. The rule of thumb is to ensure that both parties gain from the partnership, and that both parties communicate the partnership as much as possible.

5. A partnership should constantly be evaluated, and to achieve meaningful evaluation you need to know what your objectives are. What do you want to gain from the partnership? These objectives will determine how you evaluate your alliances. These objectives should always be communicated and measured by all partners, ensuring that all parties are equally focused on a mutual goal. And the goal should be that all partners grow together.

Partnerships have been around forever. But very few brand websites leverage this basic business concept. In partnership, allied brands can spread the word about each other and add quality to their customer service. So before you spend more money on banner ads and other traditional tools, consider what the partnership could do for you instead. I'm sure you will be surprised at how effective sticking together can be in a world overcrowded with brands.