Sky’s three rules for brand collaboration
MWL2014: Planning early in advance and choosing the right brand partner are vital to ensure the success of a brand collaboration, according to brand director at Sky Lyssa McGowan.
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.”
For more from Marketing Week Live visit our dedicated page here.
