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.

Copyright 2004, RAN ONE Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from www.ranone.com.