Cross Promotion: Definition and Examples

Cross promotion is a type of 4th P of marketing mix; promotion. Cross promotion used in different manners of promotion like advertisement, direct promotion, banners and etc. What actually is cross promotion? Cross promotion can be define as the promotion of two or more brands together. In cross promotion, there are more than one parties that do promotional activity together for mutual benefits. Cross promotions involves two or more parties, working together as a group promotion for more than one brand. 

In the cross promotion, one brand promote other brand also for example in Pakistani culture we can see lots of examples. During the Habib Bank credit card’s commercial, they use some retail store or super store in their commercial to promote Habib Bank’s credit card. Now we can see that during the commercial another product or brand (retail store or super store) also used. This is called cross promotion and in return of this that retail or super store may advertise Habib bank’s credit card on his counter.

Same like the above advertisement we can see Visa. They tend to use this technique a lot. What they do is mention a store or whatever in their commercials. Let's say it's a dot com. Yourname.com will make a good example. Their commercials will talk about all that you can buy on "Yourname.com" and what a great place it is for buying that product. Then their ads will mention the Visa credit card is some way, shape, or form. In turn, "Yourname.com" will recommend that their customers use their Visa cards to make any purchases from the website. There will probably also be ads, and maybe even credit applications.

There are several different forms of cross promotion, but this is the most common. Basically what you are doing is getting other companies to promote your product. There's really not a lot to it once everything is setup. The upcoming Pakistan vs. India Cricket series is another example of cross promotions.[post_ads] Companies like Pepsi, Jazz Mobilink and Bank Alfalah etc. will help to promote this series by calling themselves "Proud Sponsors of the Pakistan vs. India Cricket Series 2012." In profit, they will get to not only place ads and banners around the grounds where matches will be held, but they can also mention this series in their products and promotions to add credibility to their products. 

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This is fantastic and easy way to promote your products because in it you can find something extra with low budget and you can also get taste of well positioned brands. Let me explain this with the help of example. I current Pakistani situation, may can see the advertisement of “United Mobiles” with the tag line of “official partner of Nokia in Pakistan”. United Mobiles is Pakistan based company that claims the warranty of new mobile phone on behalf of Nokia. Now with this scenario it is easy to understand that United Mobiles are now also enjoying the brand name of Nokia. People who trust Nokia now they start showing trust on United Mobiles also. 

Cross promotion can be seen all around us. Now on retail stores, it is common to watch the different companies install their sign boards and banners also mentioning that retail store name on it. Coke, Pepsi targeted fast food industry for the cross promotion. Now every fast food chain has giant Cola partner to promote itself. This also helps the Cola Company to increase the distribution network. 

Got any questions? Or maybe, have something to add? Please leave a comment below and tell us what you're thinking. Cheers :)