Just like the rest of the economy, the partner marketing world has been upended the last few months by the pandemic. There’s no roadmap for the weeks and months ahead, but our tenacious and flexible team is hanging in there and navigating our way through the best way we know how. It’s been rewarding, inspiring and at times even fun to use our intuition and ingenuity to help clients of ours like Red Bull, Turner, Disney, Great Clips and more rethink their engagements and find new ways to drive business value.
For example, entertainment marketing, cross promotion partnerships and other marketing efforts in the sports and entertainment space look very different than they did prior to March 12. We have restructured every single arrangement that we had in place for our roster of high-profile clients with programs in this space – including pro and collegiate sports, entertainment properties involving theatrical and digital releases, large and smaller-scale events, licensed properties and brand programs. Programs and messaging that were relevant on March 11 no longer resonate the same way today; they have had to shift to focus on the new era of life and business we live in now.
This is the fourth major disruption to life and business since I founded Intemark 25 years ago. The dot-com bust, 9/11 and the economic downturn of 2008 taught me and our tenured team that partner marketing is more important than ever during difficult times. It either becomes a pillar of a new marketing strategy, or it’s a critical support piece of an augmented approach. Either way, working with like brands to share marketing power/assets and resources to meet KPI’s is incredibly effective at times like this when budgets are hemorrhaging, staffing resources are thin and messaging efforts need to continue. After all, there’s been so much invested on both sides to build campaigns and equity around certain brands, leagues, properties or events that abandoning the effort often isn’t an option.
Our team is nimble, innovative, deeply experienced and greatly respected on both sides of the deal. This enables us to creatively restructure programs in ways that work for everyone; in some cases, they may be better received than they would have been in a typical business setting. In particular, we’re seeing more altruistic marketing and consumer experiences coming to life, because brands are focusing more on the opportunities themselves and why consumers are drawn to a message or engagement instead of the many other business considerations that typically figure in campaign decisions.
The typical portfolio of vast, deep marketing assets isn’t as available in these extraordinary times. So we’re jumping in, identifying high-value assets and attributes that are accessible and then leveraging them as best we can – as only we know how, after having been through this a few times before. It’s going to make for some fascinating case studies in the months to come.
Thank you for spending some time with our newsletter! We look forward to your feedback, and to helping you and your business however we can.
Jill Woxland
We have decades of experience finding creative ways to generate revenue from existing marketing assets.
Take Intrawest ULC, for example. The company is a world leader in destination resorts and leisure travel, and its portfolio includes golf, beach, ski and luxury adventure assets. Intemark was selected to help Intrawest meet revenue targets for all its resorts while seeking partners that would add to its guests’ overall experience.
Within one year, Intemark exceeded Intrawest’s partner revenue goals by 40% and developed multiresort/multi-year agreements with leading companies such as Hewlett-Packard, PowerBar (Nestle’), Gore-Tex, Tylenol, American Express and Land Rover North America.
on the #WhopperChallenge promotion that gave TikTok users the chance to win free Burger King food. The partnership utilized TikTok influencers Loren Gray, Avani and Nathan Davis Jr.
a collaboration among various worldwide LGBTI+ Pride organizations, to launch the #GlobalPrideCrossing promotion in ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS.
to celebrate the launch of the streaming series SPACE FORCE with an ice-cream flavor tie-in!
The Support the Cities page on Facebook is assessing and sharing where clean-up efforts are most needed.
This article from Marketing Week details how budgets as a percentage of revenue and spend have risen to record levels during the pandemic.
This piece in ClickZ outlines why video needs to be essential to marketing strategy, and how it can be done most effectively with B2B and B2C audiences.
Poynter explored how journalists are using TikTok to find stories and reach a wider audience, illustrating how news generation and consumption are evolving as new social media channels grow in popularity.
CROSS PROMOTION
REVENUE GENERATION
MEDIA EXCHANGE
VALUE ADD
RETAIL MARKETING
ASSET VALUATION
