As the downturn continues to bite, media outlets are becoming 'much less precious' about who they form partnerships with.This, at least, is the view of Cocktail Marketing chief executive Chris Reed. 'We work with all the major news-papers and, without a shadow of a doubt, media brands are willing to do partnerships that would never have seen the light of day before because they haven't got the money they used to have,' he says. 'A year ago they would say things such as, "We're not 100% convin-ced by that brand and not sure we want to drive our readers to that website." Now they are much more open-minded.'
The fact that The New York Times recently sold ad space on its front cover for the first time illustrates a shift in the attitude of media owners. Newspapers can often no longer fund giveaways and are becoming more reliant on brand partners to foot this bill. Cocktail's 'Superseeds' division, which runs thousands of promotional offers, from CDs and DVDs to books, sunglasses and jewellery, has struck a record number of these brand partnership deals in the past few months.
Reed says such media tie-ups are about 'cost effectiveness and targeting the right consumers'. The biggest difference he has witnessed since the advent of the downturn is the move of focus from acquis-ition to loyalty. 'More newspapers are coming to us with a loyalty brief, say-ing "We want to keep our customers but we don't have any money to do it",' he says.
According to Reed, less money is changing hands, as a barter system emerges. Media brands may have lower budgets to play with, but they also have more unsold advertising space, which they can use as a bargaining tool in exchange for a benefit such as a product giveaway.
One of the earliest deals of this kind, struck by Cocktail Marketing, was radio station Magic's campaign with the Evening Standard, which launched two years ago. In this quid pro quo partner-ship, Magic received free advertising in the Standard and in turn the newspaper became a spon-sor of the station's daily Drive Time slot. 'Both brands achieved their goals and got valuable media space at no cost,' says Reed.
It may sound straight-forward, but other media experts claim that it is difficult to get these partnerships right.
'These kinds of deals are extremely hard to balance in terms of the benefit each party receives,' says Paul Thomas, director of The Exchange, MindShare. 'They are very hard to quantify - and in the current climate, media owners prefer to have cash.'
Nevertheless, he agrees with Reed that publishers are more open to partnership marketing and different ways of trading. 'Are they willing to bend a little more? Absolutely. But would they consider partnering a brand that is wrong for their readers? Absolutely not,' adds Thomas.
Premium media brands in particular are more open to 'bending' in brand partnerships, as demonst-rated by glossy fashion magazine Elle's recent tie-up with mainstream skincare brand Simple. For this promotion, Simple offered ElleUK.com readers the prize of a luxury spa break for two at London's Mandarin Oriental hotel, as well as a year's supply of Simple for 10 readers and a free skin health-check for everyone.
Another salient example is The Independent's recent tie-up with premium vodka brand Finlandia (see case study, below). While Finlandia's brand manager, Jamie Butler, agrees that media partner-ships are cost effective, he stresses that this is not the primary reason for doing them.
'They're good value for money but realistically there are a lot more objectives that come before cost effectiveness,' he says. 'For us, it's more about extending the reach of our audience via a trusted source.'
Butler adds that getting the right match between brand and media is key to a campaign's success, pointing out that a tie-up with a red top, for example, would have been completely inappropriate for Finlandia.
Similarly, The Times and The Sunday Times are 'very picky' when choosing partners, according to the newspapers' head of rewards and partnerships, Suzi Watford. Although she concedes that her division is busier than ever since launching a year ago, she cautions brands against viewing media partnerships as a cheap buy or a substitute for genuine investment.
'The amount of time and care and attention and joint investment that has to be put into the partnership doesn't make it a quick win,' she says. 'It can be very effective but I don't necessarily think you spend less money. Yes, we are getting more approaches but we actually have high standards about partnerships and we won't just work with anyone.'
Watford cites one of the best partner-ships as the Times' two-for-one offer with Pizza Express. 'This is fantastic at driving traffic [to the pizza chain], and we give readers a valuable reward. In addition, we are both gathering data,' she adds.
Partnerships in the current climate certainly have a more commercial edge to them. As Mark Whitmore, managing director at partnership marketing agency Swordfish, says: 'Companies are looking at the bottom line. If they are going to invest in partnership marketing, they want to see a return on their investment.'
And, although Whitmore also agrees that media owners are more open to partnership marketing than ever before, he adds that the research carried out on potential partners is much more rigorous.
'With so many big names going bust at the moment you've got to be a lot more careful about who you team up with and do a lot of digging and homework before you sign,' he says. 'In the past, a household name might be enough to seal a deal but today that means nothing without due diligence. It's about teaming up with brands that are actually going to stick around long enough.'
Or, as Reed bluntly puts it: 'If you've done a deal with Adams or Woolworths or Zavvi recently, then you're going to look a bit foolish.'
Case Study: Finlandia and The Independent
In an eight-week partnership, premium vodka brand Finlandia invited The Independent's readers to submit pictures, texts or movies that depicted a 'pure emotion', such as a moment from a holiday or a family get-together.
The Independent took responsibility for all the creative and advertised the promotion both in its print version and on its website.
As well as a main cash prize of £5000, Finlandia also offered a weekly prize of a weekend break for the best upload. These uploads were displayed online and 50 were subsequently showcased in a two-week exhibition at London's Proud Galleries.
The newspaper's objective was to reward readers, while Finlandia sought to reach The Independent's core 25- to 39-year-old audience.
According to Finlandia's PR agency, iris, the partnership provided the ideal conduit to promote the brand across several media platforms to the widest possible audience.
The interactive nature of the promotion enabled the brand to gain greater insight into its audience, while the competition encouraged consumers to return to the site.
'This partnership meant we could take Finlandia from print to online to an offline exhibit-ion, so it was a good way of integrating a campaign,' says Natasha Williams, iris' board director.
Case Study: LoveFilm and Metro
Freesheet Metro is dedicated to building long-term partnerships. Among them is an ongoing deal it struck with DVD rental service LoveFilm in December 2007.
LoveFilm wanted to forge a positive brand association with freesheet Metro that would introduce the brand to a wider audience, drive sales and enable data gathering. In turn, Metro wanted to reward loyal readers by giving them something they would value.
Metro read-ers who signed up for a 30-day trial of LoveFilm were offered two free cinema tickets. To catch readers' atten-tion, Metro ran in-paper promot-ions, reaching 1.8m consumers.
Since its inception, the partnership has delivered the equivalent of £1.5m of media coverage for LoveFilm, and thousands of redempt-ions. LoveFilm pays Metro a commission for every customer that signs up, and the paper can reward customer loyalty at no extra cost. 'It's about two brands targeting the same audience: 18- to 35-year-old professionals, who are cash-rich and time-poor,' says Chris Reed, chief executive of Cocktail Marketing, which brokered the tie-up. 'A shared aud-ience is the key to success.'
Despite the economic climate, Lovefilm is growing. On average, its members rent 3m DVDs each month.