Sephora is my "retailer of choice" for my summer school course project and Retailer Profile. This is a brief history highlighting of one of the world's most well-renowned beauty retailers. 

Check out my latest Storify.

Technology is changing everything about the shopping experience. Retailers have to come up with new digital, social, and e-commerce strategies if they want to stay in the game.

Check out my first Storify here.

In addition to lifestyle marketing, another one of my favorite topics in this field is co-branding. Co-branding is a brand partnership in which two companies create an alliance to create market synergy. There are different types of co-branding, such as ingredient co-branding, joint-venture co-branding, and same-company co-branding. Co-branding joins two (or more) well-established brands to market both products to the same consumer in hopes to bring loyalty to one product or brand to the other. Another goal of this type of branding is to combine the strength of the two brands and share brand equity.

Why I Love Co-Branding
If I see two of my favorite brands offered in one product, I am definitely more likely to make a purchase. Co-branding can also increase the premium that customers are willing to pay and my own habits show that I will pay more for products that make me feel like I'm getting the best of two worlds in one. I feel like I'm getting more for my money when I see two brands offered in one package. Would I rather have Crest toothpaste or Crest toothpaste plus Scope? The latter seems like more bang for my buck! However, there is potential for this to backfire. If I love one brand and it co-brands with what I consider to be a not-so-favorable brand, this could taint the image of the first brand altogether - but luckily, this has yet to be the case. Betty Crocker plus Hershey's, yes please! Tide plus a touch of Downy, what could be better than that? There is something fulfilling about seeing that "bonus logo" on any packaging, making co-branded products that much more appealing.

Here are some of my favorite examples and others that were nothing short of genius:

Another example of co-branding that has made headlines this week, and perhaps the inspriation for this post, is the collaboration between Target and Neiman Marcus for a holiday collection.

There are countless examples of co-branding all around us and I'm sure countless more in the works. Next time you're roaming the aisles of your favorite store or catching up on the lastest business news, check out what other collaborations are happening and ask yourself if that makes you more or less inclined to puchase these products or shop in these stores. I think co-branding is an incredibly advantageous strategy and there is a lot of potential to reach newer and broader markets while increasing brand equity. 

Are there any particular brands, companies, or products that would like to see team up together?

Thanks to my Retailing Management professor (who also taught my Consumer Behavior course and encouraged me to start blogging!), I've been introduced to the latest and greatest in social media platforms and websites. Her latest introduction and my newest obsession - Storify. 

Storify is a website that allows you to create stories or timelines using social media elements, such as photos, videos, tweets, or other articles from the Web. For those who use Weebly, which is my preferred blogging platform, Storify is similar with its drag-and-drop features. Storify allows you to search for content on the righthand side of the screen  using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc., then dragging-and-dropping your findings directly into the story on the lefthand side. As a frequent reader of blogs and a blogger myself, I find that the best, successful, and most interesting blogs are those that are engaging and interactive. 

Being able to directly incorporate different social media platforms from one screen is a shortcut, but one that allows us to spend more time searching the web for content and less time trying to figure out how to summarize or paraphrase our findings. These interactive features keep reading from being mundane, which is the key to being a successful writer or blogger.  In this day and age, social media is the primary way that people hear and read about breaking news and the latest trends. With so much information right at our fingertips and the ability to access the news and other stories instantaneously, Storify can be used to share our findings directly from the source. 

However, as with all things and social media sites, Storify isn't perfect. As discovered through today's in-class activity, the comment section could use some improvement. In an effort to keep our class interactive, we had to comment directly on the Storify link, but ran into a few issues along the way. Instead of a comment box per se, we had to type our comments as one long string of text. This made it difficult to reread our comments before posting, more likely to make mistakes, and ultimately created more work by having to search for the beginning of the comment. Needless to say, it was a tedious process. Another issue was the lack of "comment" button. In order to post a comment, you have to press the Return button on the keyboard, making it easy to post too early or accidentally. 

Overall I think Storify is a great concept with a lot of potential. I am interested to see its success both in and outside of the classroom in future years. 

I'm looking forward to creating my own stories and sharing them with you all!