ClickZ: Study: Online Dating — for Brands

Some brands get good mileage out of associations with other brands. United Airlines did well to start promoting Starbucks (thus proving that even the best coffee holds the tinge of bathroom cleaner when stuck in a plane for five hours) and Hertz gained from a close association to Qantas.

The trend seems to be growing, with brands inking more and more co-marketing deals. But the phenomenon started recently enough that some of the liabilities have not yet had time to come home to roost. It remains to be seen, for instance, what happens to such a partnership when one company goes through a rebranding. Marlboro, the lady's cigarette of the '50s, would have had much more difficulty becoming the cowboy brand had Philip Morris had another three years to run on a partnership agreement with Tupperware.