Cooperative Advertising

If you’re a technology company that is loyal to its suppliers you may be entitled to some promotional collaboration that can reduce your advertising expense.

HP’s recent ad featuring one of their sales managers, Dave Fusco, is a case in point. Fusco, dressed in full mouse ears, testified to the good service HP gets when it conducts sales meetings at Disney resorts in a recent Wall Street Journal ad. Both parties win.

Disney gets to highlight a happy customer that uses its resorts for business purposes (with the subtle reminder that you can bring the spouse and kids and extend your business trip with some family time). HP builds awareness. The two parties share the cost of the ad.

Here’s how cooperative advertising agreements work.
Disney awards HP advertising credits each time HP employees stay at Disney hotels (equal to 3 percent to 5 percent of their bill). HP uses the credits to help pay for ad costs it incurs in joint advertising with Disney (up to 50 percent of the costs of each). There’s usually a cap on the amount of credits HP can collect in a calendar year.

Ad partners like Disney will insist you use their brand guidelines and might also specify things like minimum ad sizes and ad location.

If you want to leverage the ad for other channels like TV and radio advertising, make sure you get this in the contract, which may also require you use your supplier’s provided ad copy to qualify for a reimbursement. Which brings us to our next question:

How do you get reimbursed?
You can ask your supplier to pay the full amount of the advertising up front (after you’ve approved it, of course). Then, agree to re-imburse your share of the ad’s cost after it appears.

Another option: Offer credit memos equal to your share of the ad’s cost that can be used as currency the next time you do business with the vendor.