ADVANTAGES AND PROSPECTS OF CO-BRANDING IN THE UKRAINIAN MARKET

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES. The marketing practices of companies over the past two decades have increasingly been based on co-marketing, or inter-firm marketing alliances. The mutual recognition and understanding that each firm's success depends in part on the other firm forms the foundation underlying co-marketing activities. Firms move from trying to win alone to forming networks of partner firms. Corporations understand the need for alliances to acquire and maintain competitive advantage.METHODS. We used general scientific and special research methods: abstract-logical – to summarize theoretical and methodological foundations of co-branding as an integrative marketing tool for joint development of companies; economic-statistical – to analyze the level of development of poultry companies; monographic – to study the experience of individual companies with horizontal form of co-branding; analysis and synthesis – to study the components of co-branding companies; sociological research – to identify key success factors of co-branding.FINDINGS. The structural and logical model of co-branding alliances of poultry companies, the use of which is based on a co-branding strategy, creates the necessary basis for its further development within the framework of modern marketing theory, will increase the effectiveness of co-branding.CONCLUSION. Co-branding, which is a form of strategic collaboration between two brands that involves bringing them together to create a new product or service, makes the marketing alliances of companies visible to the consumer. In doing so, companies imply recognition of the fact that their prominence represents added value. Closer collaboration with retailers, more focused promotion, and co-branding are becoming ways for many consumer companies to control costs and keep prices down. An example of such cooperation is the use of a co-branding strategy for poultry companies.

STRATEGIC ALLIANCES AND THE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN NAIROBI CITY COUNTY, KENYA

Purpose: In the Kenyan banking industry, the banks have adopted several strategies aimed at improving their competitive position in a highly competitive market. In reference to the aforementioned the general objective, this study specifically sought to examine how strategic alliances impact financial returns among Nairobi-based commercial banks. The current study specifically examined how brand marketing alliances, agency alliances, innovation alliances and technology alliances affect bank performance. Methodology: This study was based on Transactional Cost, Control Power and Resource Based View theories. The study utilized descriptive research design, that targeted all 39 fully operational commercial banks in Nairobi. The unit of observation was the operations/ relationship manager and the finance manager across each commercial bank. The sample population consisted of 78 respondents. Census sampling was adopted to enhance representation of the respondents. Primary and secondary sources of data provided data which was then be analyzed in SPSS 23 using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study employed means, standard deviation, correlation and regression methods of analysis, with results being presented using figures, tables and other infographics. Results: An 85% response rate was received. The correlation results showed a positive and significant effect of brand marketing, agency, innovation and technological alliances on banks’ profitability. The regression findings revealed that jointly brand marketing, agency, innovation and technological alliances predict 38.3% of shifts in profits generated by the banks. The study concluded that brand marketing alliances, agency alliances and technology alliances had a significant effect on profitability, while innovation alliances had an insignificant effect. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommends that banks should constantly review their agency banking to ensure they are aligned to their financial goals. Lastly, commercial banks should strive to spur their research and development which can help drive their technological innovations.

Making better foreign friendships: the effects of increased cultural diversity in alliance portfolios and portfolio configuration decisions on firm performance

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effect of increases in alliance portfolio cultural diversity (IAPCD) on a firm’s performance and how portfolio configuration characteristics moderate this effect, aiming to enable managers to make better partner choice and portfolio configuration decisions to improve performance. Design/methodology/approach The sample includes 2,326 focal firms from 93 countries that formed 7,616 alliances between the years 1992 and 2006. This study uses generalized method of moments estimation to examine the effects of portfolio changes on next year’s firm sales performance. Findings Results reveal an inverted-U relationship between IAPCD and firm performance. Data limitations led to examining moderating effects only on the upslope portion of the inverted-U, indicating that an increasing percentage of joint ventures in a firm’s alliance portfolio strengthens IAPCD’s contribution to performance. Further, increased numbers of marketing alliances or research and development alliances and increased percentage of horizontal alliances in an alliance portfolio have a negative moderating effect. Research limitations/implications The sample mostly covers large companies. The data indicate that nearly all firms are on the upslope of an inverted-U IAPCD–to–performance relationship, allowing testing of moderating effects pre-inflection point only. Practical implications Firms can leverage the additions of culturally diverse partners toward improved performance through astute configuration decisions in alliance portfolio composition. Originality/value This paper uses the knowledge-based view to contribute to the alliance portfolio literature. This study asserts that capacity constraints affect firms’ ability to realize performance gains when taking on culturally diverse partners, an effect moderated by portfolio configurations. This paper tests hypothesis with longitudinal data.

Research on the Construction of Performance Indicators for the Marketing Alliance of Catering Industry and Credit Card Issuing Banks by Using the Balanced Scorecard and Fuzzy AHP

In recent years, strategic alliances have seen explosive growth in various practical fields. Various forms of strategic alliances and cooperation models have been widely used among various organizations and have received considerable attention from academic and practical circles. However, there are many factors that affect the success of marketing alliances, and the academic community has not reached a conclusion and consensus. Among them, the establishment and monitoring of a performance evaluation mechanism is one of the key points. In the past, many academic studies have devoted themselves to the establishment of performance evaluation mechanisms for many different industries, but few of them have focused on the establishment of performance evaluation mechanisms for marketing alliances between the service industry and the banking industry. The purpose of this study is to assist in the establishment of performance evaluation indicators for marketing alliance between the catering industry and credit card issuing banks by using expert Delphi, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and balanced scorecard methods. The main result of this study is to establish five key performance evaluation indicators including customer factors, cooperative alliance factors, financial factors, learning and growth factors, and internal process factors. In terms of secondary indicators, there are seven customer sub-factors, six cooperative alliance sub-factors, five financial sub-factors, seven internal processes sub-factors, and five learning and growth sub-factors, totaling 30 sub-factors. The research results can be used as a reference for academic and practical areas.

From Advertisement Integration to Co-Branding: Marketing Alliances Development in Digital Environment

The paper provides a methodological explanation of the essence of shifting from the native advertising format (advertisement integration) to co-branding (brand alliance) involving companies and influencers (opinion leaders) that interact in the digital environment. Such a shift is interpreted by the authors as a process of strategic development of marketing cooperation in the digital environment, since co-branding involves launching new products to the market and is accompanied by creating new markets and needs. The authors propose their own approach to the issue in hand from the perspective of marketing alliance typology based on the marketing complex model. Differences between advertisement integrations and co-branding are conceptualized following this model. The need to consider influencers’ role in forging brand alliances is explained from the branding theory perspective. Differences between celebrity endorsements marketing and influencer marketing are identified. The proposed methodology is applied to study actual cases of co-branding in the digital environment involving Russian and foreign companies that are associated with shaping a new market of gender-neutral cosmetics. Eventually, a conclusion is made on the need for further study of marketing alliances in the digital space to establish a comprehensive theoretical and methodology foundation and accumulate empirical material on the issue in hand.

Acxiom, Red Hat, Actifio, & IBM: A Strategic Partnership on Virtualization and Marketing

This document contains an analysis of strategic alliances between «big» players in information technology (IT) and software applications in server virtualization (SV) and marketing alliances. The main objective is to analyze the commercial advantages, benefits, and challenges of business partners, using the SV for information management, data storage, and collaboration in marketing programs. We analyze cases of alliances in companies like IBM, Acxiom, Red Hat, and Actifio, who have identified the competitive advantages of having a main «partner», which has the ideal product or service to complement one or several secondary brands as a commercial strategy and brand positioning. The SV brings positive transformations such as the reduction of hardware costs, the improvement of the provisioning and implementation of the server, disaster recovery solutions, efficient and economical use of energy, and increased productivity. This strategy invites to change the way in which data centers are being formed, and becomes a preferred solution not only for the reduction of IT costs, but at the same time it makes a company more flexible, productive, and efficient, generating better results. The ability to capture and store more and more detailed information about customer needs and behavior, taking advantage of the technology and intelligence of business partners, creates better opportunities in services, products, and more effective marketing campaigns, attracting new customers and positioning brands.