How to harness the "Sheen Effect" for your brand

It's difficult to ignore the rising trend of significant brand partnerships being struck in the entertainment space. Just recently, YouTube announced that it was partnering with agencies to produce branded channels featuring original short-form content. Celebrities such as Paula Deen are building online presences around partnering with brands, and makeup megalith Avon is teaming up with Fergie to increase its engagement with female consumers in markets around the world.

In addition, social media has come to be a powerful tool for research and planning, acting as a vast online focus group to measure people's tastes and preferences. Social media can also help bring a more objective process to selecting the entertainment property or personality that your brand should partner with. As Dan Neely, founder of CEO of Networked Insights, puts it, "Use social media to size up the talent pool that makes sense for your brand so you can have an intelligent conversation about building both brands."

Four top brand strategists who specialize in working in entertainment partnerships spoke to iMedia about their process, their top tips, and the most common mistakes to watch out for.

Gary McCormick, immediate past chair and CEO, Public Relations Society of America. 

Top tips

• Research is key -- not just to ensure that the overall brand values fit with each other, but that both products/ divisions being marketed complement each other as well.
  
  
• Entertainment properties such as celebrities are often inherently less stable, and social media adds that touch of uncertainty to the consumer response.
  
  
• Partnership is a difficult process, with a heavy investment and potential risk to your brand equity. It should be entered into carefully.

iMedia Connection: You've worked in partnership development for a long time. What's the most important thing to keep in mind when seeking out a brand or celebrity to partner with?

McCormick: Most importantly, it's that initially to make sure that the brand equity is similar to yours, and that the brand values are similar. Once you commit your marketing funds and your brand awareness and your consumer touchpoints, you're risking some of your own investment and equity if you don't pick the right partner.

iMedia Connection: So research is very important.

McCormick: Yes, and secondly, it's important to understand what their priorities and commitments are. What is their media schedule? Who are they trying to reach, and how? Even if your brand equities are similar, they maybe marketing a part of the company that's a disconnect with the audience you're trying to reach.

iMedia Connection: There may also be power imbalances when trying to make this work...

McCormick: Absolutely. When you try and partner with a larger brand -- a popular brand getting asked to the dance by everyone -- as a smaller brand, you won't really have a lot of say or control over what you get from them. So often it's either live with that or don't play at all.

iMedia Connection: But when there's a good match...

McCormick: When two brands much up, and the equity is good, the delivery is good, the messaging is good -- they really can gain access to their target audience quicker, and ensure that transference of credibility. But it's a long-term initiative, and a heavy investment to make it work.

iMedia Connection: What about celebrity endorsements and partnerships?

McCormick: If you look at the celebrity genre over the last several years -- think Tiger Woods and Lindsay Lohan -- any number of celebrities who had very strong endorsement deals, the minute their brand becomes diminished, you have some impact on the consumer partner as well. You may see celebrity endorsement value diminished in the consumers' eyes more than it used to be. Of course, I say this, and the Kardashians continue to get $100,000 for an appearance...

iMedia Connection: Well, they're very smart.

McCormick: Exactly. But when you deal with an individual and their brand, as opposed to a business' brand, I think there's a higher risk there.

iMedia Connection: There's unpredictability.

McCormick: We've been so used to buying media, and controlling media from a marketing standpoint where it's black and white, so I think now that we have social media, and appearance value, and are leveraging co-branding, it's a different mix.

iMedia Connection: What do you think of social media's role in that mix?

McCormick: The interesting thing is that two years ago, we didn't hear much about it at all, while now social media's become a primary way of having a conversation with the consumer. Best Buy's monitoring and response of consumer comments is a great example of active engagement. But it's very resource intensive, so you have to pick the best times and means of engagement to ensure that it is benefitting the brand.

iMedia Connection: Consumers are increasingly savvy, so how do you ensure they get the most value out of these partnerships?

McCormick: The consumer is much savvier. They have to see the benefit, or there is no good reason for it. For instance, some of our partnerships in the past couple of years have been in the retail segment with our programming and talent -- we partnered on some makeover and design opportunities for consumers around some of our shows. It put us in a retail environment we couldn't purchase, but it also gave consumers something that was relevant to their retail experience, by giving them an opportunity for design consultation. You have to find what's strategic between the two brands, and it has to deliver some sort of special offer for it to really resonate with the consumer.

iMedia Connection: So that at the very least, they don't feel exploited.

McCormick: If they feel that way, then everybody wasted their money.