strange bedfellows JetBlue and Christy Turlington

joint venture marketing

Who in the world is Christy Turlington?

Good question.

She is a supermodel that shows up on hundreds of Calvin Klein and Maybelline ads… and really she has almost nothing to do with your success in business.

Almost. Here’s your first practical joint venture marketing insight for the day…

The non-stop, jetBlue flight from L.A. to Chicago takes about 4 hours.  We were a good 90 minutes into the flight… drinks had been served, everyone was munching on their peanuts, the fasten seatbelt sign was off, and we were all settled in.

It was just about then that I noticed the flight attendant coming down the aisle with a handful of small black tubes in her hand.

And she was only handing them to the ladies.

Kinda sexist I thought… until she got to me. It was a tube of Maybelline mascara.  It was a free trial tube – a gift for all the women on the flight.  Yeah, I didn’t want one.

But, the marketing folks over at Maybelline deserve a round of applause and a pat on the back. Brilliant.

Remember what I said yesterday about “underutilized assets”?  Here was the perfect example. The asset in this case is time.

Passengers have nothin’ but time on their hands as they jet around the country.  Flight attendants got nothin’ but time on their hands on long flights in between handing out pop, coffee and peanuts.

So, why not put the time to work for both companies?  That’s exactly what Maybelline and jeBlue did. No doubt both are coming away with more money in their pocket and every woman the flight walked away with better looking eye lashes.

That is the power of joint venture marketing.

The lesson?

Joint venture partnerships are far more flexible than you might think.  Who would have thought that jetBlue and Maybelline would be a great match? Not me.  But they were.

I can guarantee that the same thing exists in your market.

Ask yourself this question:  What non-related industry or market does my target audience spend time in?

It is likely that several markets popped into your head. It is also very likely that there are dozens of businesses in that market that have some kind of “underutilized assets” that the two of you could tap into by collaborating together.

A quick Google search defines an asset as being:

1.    Anything owned by an individual or a business that has commercial or exchange value.
2.    A possession of value, usually measured in terms of money.
3.    Valuable items, encumbered or not, owned by a person, corporation, or entity.

So it’s basically something of value that a person or business has that is not being optimized.  Now keep in mind that the vast majority of business owners have “underutilized” assets. This is where it get’s interesting. This is where you can provide a way for these business owners (and yourself) to create income from the sale of their existing products or services by combing other complimentary type companies “assets” with their “assets”.

Tomorrow’s Message: the top 5 overlooked JV deals

Sincerely,

christian fea

joint venture marketing

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