Gone are the old days of traditional marketing for companies promoting only one brand at a time. Why raise awareness for one product when you can do double the duty in one single promotion? What is this new strategy? Cross promotion.

This increasingly popular tool has been used by various companies recently. Parent companies are realizing that attaching the corporate name behind each brand not only raises awareness of their presence in different products, but also solidifies the “loyalty branding” in consumers’ minds. Just like what Lisa Hsieh said in her blog – No Name vs. Brand Name – “that warm fuzzy feeling” we get when we recognize and associate with a known brand name verifies our confidence in the functions and expectations of the product.

Let’s take a look at Proctor & Gamble. How many people actually know that besides its well established position as the parent behind Tide and Bounty but also own the brands Pringles, Braun, and Duracell? In the Bounce – Old Spice cross-over commercial, P&G adopts a new marketing strategy. They use this “interruptive” twist on its “often bland” advertisings to not only add excitement to its product, but spark that recognition in our brain that says, “Hey, I know Bounce. I’ve used it before, that means Old Spice must also be trustworthy.”

Just that one little association in consumer thought results in enormous benefits – confidence in product, loyalty of another category under the same parent name, promotion of the brand(s).

In class we talked about the importance of branding; of positioning yourselves in the minds of consumers and imprinting your stamp on them. However, with competition so fierce, and the endless list of products available on the market, it is hard for companies to differentiate themselves. Confidence of products is even harder to justify especially due to the number of alternatives available. But, with a well established parent company attached behind each product, I think loyalty can be secured. Cross-promotion is truly a genius and interesting idea.

For those as wow-ed as I am about this topic, take a look at how P&G uses this strategy in the article “We interrupt this ad to bring you…another ad”!