by Lynne Gordon (@lynne_gordon) We South Africans are masters of collaboration, with inventive partnership seemingly part of our DNA. Everywhere, entrepreneurs and artists, self-starters and the self-made create successful new ventures by seeking opportunities to come together, bring ideas together, work together.
Need a plumber? The security guard knows a guy. Getting your dry cleaning done? Dudu outside can tailor those pants while you wait. Need ideas? Let’s work together. Running through the fabric of South African culture is a red thread of creative collaboration and inspiring partnerships that fuel our growth as a nation. And the same spirit of collaboration and unusual partnering is growth-fuel for brands courageous enough to embrace it.
The need for fresh perspectives
To win in tough markets, businesses are increasingly incapable of solving for growth in isolation. The heyday of ‘the answer lies inside our team’ is over. Instead, businesses seeking innovation, opportunities to renew and ideas to attract new consumer demand need to open their doors — and their minds — to new partners offering fresh thinking.
Driven by the search for new sources of growth, it’s more and more often ‘business as usual’ to seek inspiration from the world outside, using collaborative new partnerships to infuse innovative ideas.
A culture of collaboration
For consumers, fresh combinations and unusual collaboration are the order of the day. In a global culture of inclusion, people seek genuine collaboration, recognising that more bright minds create better opportunities. Bringing together different perspectives is a source of new perspectives, new insights and new skills. And so consumers look to brands with a scanner for inspiring collaborations — who can offer me some new combination? A smart and creative fusion? An unexpected original benefit?
This consumer desire for fresh perspectives, combined with brands’ needs for innovation, fuels opportunities and inspires new sources of growth:
Collaborating for content
Brands seeking to provide rich, relevant content to engage consumers are smart to look to collaboration as a source for inspiring ideas and material.
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Yuppiechef has built its equity on the coolest cooking gadgets shipped to your door around SA. Through smart collaborations, it’s extended its offering from kitchen gadgets to foodie ingredients and now to revenue-generating content — online cooking courses in partnership with top SA chefs.
- KFC was recognised at the Loeries in Durban with a golden bird for its content curation in KFC Soundbites, an inspiring collaboration to bring upcoming new music artists to its customers at interactive tables in outlets.
- [And don’t forget M&C Saatchi Abel paired takealot.com with Mr D — ed-at-large]
Collaborating for innovation
Partnership may be a powerful source of new innovation.
Unilever has gone big to create the Unilever Foundry, an innovation lab that invites startups, designers and innovators to collaborate with Unilever teams to bring their innovations to Unilever brands, and to partner with it in its vision to make sustainable living commonplace. The platform overtly seeks collaborations as a way to transform Unilever growth, cultivating experimentation and innovation with its global brand portfolio.
Collaborating for enriched experiences
Uber is earning cult status for turning public transport on its head. Its open approach to partnering is the next phase to enrich its mobility solution, making Uber the service that brings unique and unexpected experiences — from great taxi transport to spring cleaning, ice cream and flu shots — to your door. Its collaboration with the new VW Up created a fresh experience that amplified both brands.
These offers to deliver #uberforgood, #ubericecream and #uberhealthsa have created news and reinforced both the helpful and quirky aspects of the brand.
Collaborating for good
Banding together, we know we can achieve more. Brands seeking to amplify social good for good business have recognised the power of partnering to enhance their brand message. Woolworths current partnership with performer Farrel Williams anchors a story about their joint ‘mission to change the world’ for the better, and makes the campaign more powerful, credible and newsworthy.
Lessons for marketers
A fresh perspective is available to brands ready to embrace inspiring collaboration. Find ways to:
- Open your brand eco-system to long-term partners who complement and enrich your proposition. While campaign collaborations provide fresh news, the real winners create long-term recognisable partnerships that amplify the impact of their brands’ core propositions.
- Curate new sources of creativity to bring value to your consumer. Meaningful partnerships — that bring music, art and design from emerging artists to your consumers — taps into their real passions and enhances a brand’s relevance and appeal.
- Enhance impact by joining forces to achieve a common goal. As the cost of marketing escalates and budgets contract, collaboration offers brands the opportunity to amplify ‘bang for buck’ by finding common ground to pool resources and enhance market impact.
We’re better together. The sky is the limit for the new possibilities created when we open our brands to the same collaboration that suffuses the streets of the rainbow nation!
Lynne Gordon (@lynne_gordon) is the managing director at strategic marketing consultancy Added Value. Read more about inspiring collaboration and other cultural trends for 2015 at www.culturalthemes.com.
Lynne learned marketing on-the-job and is fascinated by the streets of South Africa, where small entrepreneurs — untrained as marketers — apply the art and science of branding to their businesses.
Her monthly MarkLives column, “Homegrown”, explores everyday businesses and the lessons corporate marketers can learn from the streets of Mzansi. Share your own observations, photos and examples of marketing from SA’s roadside with @lynne_gordon on Twitter.
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