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."