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Be Known By Your Affiliates
Smaller enterprises have a hard
time cutting through the brand strength of their larger counterparts.
A small hotel will never be as easily-recognized as the Hilton up the
street. Nor will an aviation business with two aircraft be seen in the
same light as United Airlines. It’s a fact of life every small business
has to live with.
There is however a way that you can link your ‘unknown’ organization
with someone bigger and have the strength of their brand benefit your
own business. You do this by creating an affiliation that connects your
brand with theirs.
There’s nothing new about this. Look at any city street where there are
several retail outlets and you’ll see some examples - the liquor store
with signs from the most popular brands of beer on the shopfront, the
appliance retailer with logos of well-known manufacturers in the
windows, and the tire dealer with branded racks of tires prominently
displayed.
Most SMEs are pretty specialized. They do one thing and they work very
hard to do it well. But because they’re small they don’t have a
widely-recognized brand. It’s hard for a small business to differentiate
itself from other small businesses in the same industry.
Even big businesses like major airlines have the same problem. Airline
travel has become so commoditized that consumers perceive all airlines
to provide basically the same experience.
So what can businesses – let’s
say a restaurant and a major airline, do to set themselves apart from
their very similar competitors? The can do what several independent
restaurants and United Airlines have done and affiliate themselves with
Starbuck’s coffee. If you’re the only restaurant in your neighborhood
promoting itself as serving Starbuck’s coffee, or the only major airline
doing the same thing, you’ve gained a marketing advantage through
affiliation.
When we say ‘brand’ it doesn’t necessarily have to be a product brand
with which a small business can be affiliated. L’Oreal wanted to
differentiate itself from other hair care products so it’s linked its
brand with the city of Paris, using ‘Paris’ after its own brand name in
advertisements. Saying “L’Oreal, Paris” sounds a lot more European,
exotic and French than just the brand name on its own.
Some years ago Hertz Rent-A-Car wanted to set itself apart from its
competitors so it placed a special order for Shelby-modified Ford
Mustangs. These distinctively painted street-legal hot rods were so
popular they were rented out weeks in advance, and many were returned on
Monday morning after being used as racers over the weekend. Forty years
later the ‘Hertz Mustangs’ are still popular with collectors – a very
successful and long-lasting affiliation!
A more modern automotive affiliation is the one between the Ritz Carlton
hotel chain and Mercedes-Benz. The chain has an up-market ‘Key to
Luxury’ package that includes the use of a motor vehicle during the
guest’s stay in the hotel. Naturally, it had to be a luxury vehicle, but
that still left the question of which one to choose.
The Ritz Carlton hotel brand represents luxury, taste and classic
refinement. It also has connotations of being international and fairly
conservative. There are several makes of luxury motor vehicles that
could have been provided along with a Ritz Carlton room, but Mercedes
fit the image better than any other vehicle and the affiliation came
into being.
So, how can a small business
find an affiliate that will benefit its own position in the market?
Analyze your own customers to identify what other types of brands they
will recognize and relate themselves to. An Italian restaurant
can link itself with a popular brand of spaghetti that its customers
probably cook with at home. An air conditioning business can link itself
with a popular brand of air conditioners that their customers would like
to own.
It’s even possible for a small business to receive a subsidy from a
large brand in exchange for some sort of exclusivity such as putting
that brand onto its delivery vehicles or menus. Brand affiliations can
benefit both parties to the arrangement.
And don’t forget to go through the brands of all the products your
business is now purchasing. You may find that you’re already affiliated
with a major brand that could help your business and you just haven’t
told anyone about it.
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