Sky’s three rules for brand collaboration

McGowan shared learnings from Sky’s collaboration with Disneymedia+ and Pixar for its recent broadband campaign in the Marketing Week Live session ‘Brand collaboration in the future’.

The campaign saw Disney Pixar create a 50 second ad using the Toy Story characters to promote Sky broadband.

McGowan explained that the initial idea came from a script pitched by its agency WCRS and Sky then approached Disneymedia+, the department that sits across all Disney divisions and is tasked with monetizing brand properties.

McGowan outlined three rules for brand collaboration:

1. Choose your brand partner carefully – that is quite key. It is crucial to have brands that fit quite well together.

2. Make sure it’s a win/win for each party. She said there were a number of occasions where the parties “came to bumps in the road” and a way through had to be found that benefited both parties.

3. Plan ahead. Sky and Disneymedia+ started planning nine months out from the campaign and with hindsight McGowan says she would have started the process even earlier.

She added that marketers should be prepared “to break a few brand guidelines” in the process if it led to a better result.

Barnaby Rothwell, director, promotions EMEA Disneymedia+ says: “The way we approached it was just to make a great piece of creative. That was always our starting point.”

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