July 9, 2012
Campaign Brings Together Strange Dinner Fellows
For a brand, finding genuinely unique sales points (USPs) has never been easy. So when marketers stretch to make lateral connections with complementary brands, they often run the risk of compromising their own hard-won USPs.
A new marketing partnership between Banana Republic and the publisher Conde Nast illustrates the challenges and possible rewards of lateral associations. Conde Nast’s Bon Appétit will soon be promoting a "Desk to Dinner" clothing range from the clothing chain. Also involved is the restaurant reservation service, OpenTable. Targeting women who may be going to dinner directly from the office, the apparel line is intended to be suitable for both environments.
It’s quite a lateral reach. As The New York Times observed, "about the only time that food and clothing turn up together in ads is when detergents demonstrate their abilities to remove from one the stains made by the other."
The Times pointed out that Banana Republic has shared promotions with fashion magazines in the past, but this is its first collaboration with a food publication. Marketing Vice President Chris Nicklo said that food is "definitely one of the passions" of the brand’s customers, adding "Bon Appétit and OpenTable have audiences that are outside my own."
Marketing agency Integrated Marketing Services is in the business of recommending similar pairings. The agency’s past campaigns have matched Sports Illustrated with Miller Lite in 7-Eleven stores for the Super Bowl. It also arranged for InStyle magazine to deliver "a national Shopper Marketing program that leveraged four advertiser partner brands to support the November Holiday issue."
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Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions: Are associations such as that between Banana Republic, Bon Appétit and OpenTable good for brand marketers and consumers? Can you think of any past out-of-the-box partnerships that have worked well?
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Maybe it’s just me or New York, but I don’t believe this is such a stretch at all. In this foodie-crazy world we now live in, it is completely common to be thinking about clothes and the type of places you’ll be going which for the most part involve food. Be it a party at someone’s house or club, a restaurant, gallery, or a beer and burger on the Hudson River Park, people do think about what they will wear for each type of event. A recent article in the NY Times featured a restaurateur that went from one social event to another — all involving food by the way, and covered what he wore at each occasion in great detail. It seemed a little over the top to me, but hey, this is what people care about, apparently. It is smart for Bon Appétit and Banana to get together and we will be seeing more of this.
I don’t think this is as much of a reach as the NYT article suggests. It’s likely that some research into psychographics and lifestyle interests found quite a bit of common ground. It’s easy to see how self-described foodies and fashionistas fall into the same broad target market.
This doesn’t strike me as “out-of-the-box” at all. Yes, some marketers do stretch connections for promotions, but this one makes ultimate sense. This is a well targeted logic effort that carries great communication that could never been done as efficiently with straight advertising.
All I can say to Bon Appetit is, “Bonsoir!”
Are foodies and fashionistas the same people? In many cases the answer is clearly, “Yes,” but the real question is of that group, how many regularly don togs from Banana Republic? Methinks it’s a much tighter circle.
So, while the idea could make sense, the partnership may not.
As to truly out-of-the-box partnerships that, “worked,” … we might have to go all the way back to Sonny and Cher.
The successful example that comes to mind when thinking about these partnerships is the arrangement with 17 companies, if I remember correctly, that allowed select 7-Eleven stores to be turned into Kwik-E-Marts when the Simpsons movie was released. It created amazing buzz and increased sales. Some new products were so successful they stayed after the promotion. In addition to that, the collaboration between so many players is the amazing part of the process to me.
There are no challenges here. The three brands do not compete with each other and they share customers. Collaborations are SOP for brands today because each brand brings equity to the table.
On one hand, the intersection of food and fashion appears to be a fun, unique space for marketers to explore. As the NYTimes.com article notes, food is a passion of the Banana Republic customer (I assume they have research to support that claim), and fashion is part of the dining out experience.
On the other hand, this specific partnership doesn’t strike me as leading shoppers to buy the Desk to Dinner apparel line. The Banana Republic customer may be a foodie, but up until now, I’m sure they’ve done quite well at deciding on their own which outfits make a smooth transition from 9-to-5 to after 5.
That said, and considering the broader issue of unique brand partnerships, I’m all for them, even if — as in the Banana Republic/Appétit partnership — they don’t result in an immediate sales bump. Brands, especially apparel brands, don’t exist on one plain in the consumer’s life. Rather, they exist on multiple levels throughout the consumer’s lifestyle. Marketing relationships that explore those areas where multiple brands overlap in the consumer’s life – as in food and fashion — bring more to the table for the shopper. Obviously, it’s hoped that they get the shopper to open their wallets, but in some cases, it’s about instilling in the consumer’s mind that this is a brand that understands how they live outside the shopping experience. The brand conveys that it’s the brand for their lifestyle, and that could prove more valuable in the long term.
Consumers are anything but one-dimensional, and brands don’t exist in one space inside the consumer’s life. Creating new, unique brand partnerships brings more flavor to the brand meal.
Quite interesting. At first read, the collaboration feels a bit odd. However, with the assumption that Integrated Marketing Services did the research to show that the 3 brands’ most engaged consumer groups were complementary, the partnership should prove synergistic.
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Maybe it’s just me or New York, but I don’t believe this is such a stretch at all. In this foodie-crazy world we now live in, it is completely common to be thinking about clothes and the type of places you’ll be going which for the most part involve food. Be it a party at someone’s house or club, a restaurant, gallery, or a beer and burger on the Hudson River Park, people do think about what they will wear for each type of event. A recent article in the NY Times featured a restaurateur that went from one social event to another — all involving food by the way, and covered what he wore at each occasion in great detail. It seemed a little over the top to me, but hey, this is what people care about, apparently. It is smart for Bon Appétit and Banana to get together and we will be seeing more of this.
I don’t think this is as much of a reach as the NYT article suggests. It’s likely that some research into psychographics and lifestyle interests found quite a bit of common ground. It’s easy to see how self-described foodies and fashionistas fall into the same broad target market.
This doesn’t strike me as “out-of-the-box” at all. Yes, some marketers do stretch connections for promotions, but this one makes ultimate sense. This is a well targeted logic effort that carries great communication that could never been done as efficiently with straight advertising.
All I can say to Bon Appetit is, “Bonsoir!”
Are foodies and fashionistas the same people? In many cases the answer is clearly, “Yes,” but the real question is of that group, how many regularly don togs from Banana Republic? Methinks it’s a much tighter circle.
So, while the idea could make sense, the partnership may not.
As to truly out-of-the-box partnerships that, “worked,” … we might have to go all the way back to Sonny and Cher.
The successful example that comes to mind when thinking about these partnerships is the arrangement with 17 companies, if I remember correctly, that allowed select 7-Eleven stores to be turned into Kwik-E-Marts when the Simpsons movie was released. It created amazing buzz and increased sales. Some new products were so successful they stayed after the promotion. In addition to that, the collaboration between so many players is the amazing part of the process to me.
There are no challenges here. The three brands do not compete with each other and they share customers. Collaborations are SOP for brands today because each brand brings equity to the table.
On one hand, the intersection of food and fashion appears to be a fun, unique space for marketers to explore. As the NYTimes.com article notes, food is a passion of the Banana Republic customer (I assume they have research to support that claim), and fashion is part of the dining out experience.
On the other hand, this specific partnership doesn’t strike me as leading shoppers to buy the Desk to Dinner apparel line. The Banana Republic customer may be a foodie, but up until now, I’m sure they’ve done quite well at deciding on their own which outfits make a smooth transition from 9-to-5 to after 5.
That said, and considering the broader issue of unique brand partnerships, I’m all for them, even if — as in the Banana Republic/Appétit partnership — they don’t result in an immediate sales bump. Brands, especially apparel brands, don’t exist on one plain in the consumer’s life. Rather, they exist on multiple levels throughout the consumer’s lifestyle. Marketing relationships that explore those areas where multiple brands overlap in the consumer’s life – as in food and fashion — bring more to the table for the shopper. Obviously, it’s hoped that they get the shopper to open their wallets, but in some cases, it’s about instilling in the consumer’s mind that this is a brand that understands how they live outside the shopping experience. The brand conveys that it’s the brand for their lifestyle, and that could prove more valuable in the long term.
Consumers are anything but one-dimensional, and brands don’t exist in one space inside the consumer’s life. Creating new, unique brand partnerships brings more flavor to the brand meal.
Quite interesting. At first read, the collaboration feels a bit odd. However, with the assumption that Integrated Marketing Services did the research to show that the 3 brands’ most engaged consumer groups were complementary, the partnership should prove synergistic.