I have been tracking brand partnerships over the last 2+ years, particularly those that seem necessitated by prevailing conditions around the world, and those that are not about the pandemic.
The pandemic has heightened our sense of hygiene and cleanliness, and this naturally means more hospitality brands need to do more to make us trust them.
So, OYO partners with Unilever for the ‘Sanitised Stays’ properties program, while Hilton partners with Reckitt and Mayo Clinic, and Tripadvisor partners with Reckitt.
These three partnerships, from the perspective of the hospitality brands, are geared to make us think they are doing more towards hygiene. If they merely speak about what they are doing (training staff, helping guests with more hygiene products, etc.) that would have some amount of impact. But to assuage guests and convince them that the effort is impactful, these 3 brands have chosen to ride on the already existing trust for hygiene-specific brands.
So, Unilever’s hygiene product range including Lifebuoy, Domex, Sunlight, and Cif are the brands that will be named and promoted as OYO’s ‘Sanitised Stays’ properties.
Hilton depends on Reckitt’s hygiene brands like Lysol and Dettol to convince guests that their hygiene-related efforts are of high quality, while the partnership with Mayo Clinic allows them to talk about the clinic’s Infection Prevention and Control team helping the staff with the cleaning and disinfection protocols.
Tripadvisor’s partnership with Reckitt is mainly around one product, Lysol. Unlike Hilton, Tripadvisor has only a supervisory role over participating hospitality vendors that list on the website. So, Tripadvisor’s Lysol partnership remains at a higher level – advice to support businesses, and more specifically, distribution of specially designed Lysol Disinfection and Sanitization Kits.
In all 3 cases, the hospitality brands need the sanitation and hygiene brands, and not the other way round. The hygiene brands have established their credentials over many years and can partner with any number of other hospitality brands to extend their credibility. In a way, they are leasing their credibility as defined through their brand because the timing was appropriate.
Beyond hospitality brands, any company that invites guests/people into its properties becomes a good target for such a partnership. For instance, Uber has tied up with assorted hygiene-centric brands as the pandemic started and progressed.
This included an overall tie-up with Unilever in May 2020 and extended that partnership across multiple countries as the pandemic started its global march, an Australia-centric tie-up with Dettol (from Reckitt), and another US-centric partnership with Clorox. Uber’s multiple partnerships don’t seem as thought-through or streamlined compared with what Hilton is doing, for instance, where the brand partnership is centralized and this helps in efficient communication around the hygiene and sanitation theme.
Not all partnerships are around hygiene, though, even during the peak of the pandemic.
Consider Zoom’s partnership with F1! Zoom and F1 first announced a partnership in July 2020 as the devastating effects of the pandemic started to surface. In early 2020, the first eight F1 races are without the traditional in-person hospitality offerings, so the partnership with Zoom enabled F1 to create virtual experiences through a Virtual Paddock Club. Then, in March 2021, Zoom and F1 extended the initial partnership in more aspects since virtual experiences were becoming the norm by then.
Another non-hygiene partnership that was still topical was the one between Tinder and Lyft in the US. In March 2021, when parts of the US were gradually opening up, Tinder noticed more people adding ‘on a date’ in their bios, after months of being cooped up with virtual dates and meetings. So the partnership allows Tinder members to buy a Lyft ride for a potential date inside the Tinder app!
But one of the most unusual partnerships I have come across in recent times just about predates the pandemic. I came to know about it only after seeing the logo of one brand in the ads of the other and I thought it was entirely unusual.
In February 2020, Skechers, the footwear brand, announced a partnership with The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company whereby select products from the shoe range would feature branded Goodyear Performance Outsoles made with Goodyear-developed rubber technology!
Goodyear is no doubt known for its tyres (as also horseshoe pads, in the company’s early days), so it makes sense to use the same technology for footwear. Skechers, by itself, is known for footwear with great performance outsoles (among competing brands), but the brand choosing to partner with another rubber expert (though in a completely different area where the impact of the rubber on surfaces is not directly felt by a human, but by a machine) and even brand their own soles with the partner’s brand was a surprise… despite the fact that Goodyear’s logo has a shoe right in the middle!!
Many of the partnerships above were necessitated by the pandemic and its aftermath of how the consumer mindset was changing. But the Skechers – Goodyear partnership stands out uniquely since two entirely unrelated entities decided to come together to offer something unusual—yet contextually relevant—to one entity’s users even as the other entity’s (Goodyear) buyers don’t get anything at all! In all the other partnerships mentioned above, both parties gain in some way – when guests arrive at a Hilton property, they see branded hygiene products from Reckitt being used and may continue buying those products at home too, for instance.