Co-branding is a marketing strategy that involves strategic alliance of multiple brand names jointly used on a single product or service.[1]
Co-branding is an arrangement that associates a single product or service with more than one brand name, or otherwise associates a product with someone other than the principal producer. The typical co-branding agreement involves two or more companies acting in cooperation to associate any of various logos, color schemes, or brand identifiers to a specific product that is contractually designated for this purpose. The objective for this is to combine the strength of two brands, to increase the premium consumers are willing to pay, make the product or service more resistant to copying by private label manufacturers, or to combine the different perceived properties associated with these brands with a single product.
An early instance of co-branding occurred in 1956 when Renault had Jacques Arpels of jewelers Van Cleef and Arpels turn the dashboard of one of their newly introduced Dauphines into a work of art.[2]
Co-branding (also called brand partnership)[3] as described in Co-Branding: The Science of Alliance, is when two companies form an alliance to work together, thus creating marketing synergy.[4]