I ordered a bucket of chicken from KFC the other night (my arteries are still feeling the burn from that workout) and was struck by the oddest marketing partnership that I had ever seen. KFC meets Hallmark, enough said.

This was a marketing ploy for mother’s day, and KFC had sticky ads printed up and stuck on top of the bucket of chicken, offering 20% off at Hallmark Flowers and Gifts. However that begs the question what do chickens and flowers have in common? Nothing as far as I can tell.

Safeway on the other hand pulled their cross promotion off flawlessly. It’s not a mother’s day promotion and it doesn’t have the same disparity as the KFC/Hallmark deal, and that is why it works; it isn’t forced.
It’s simple – you buy cereal, you get milk.

The reason that I’m mentioning this is that partnerships are a very effective strategy to maximize the attention that your product/service gets, but you have to make a conscientious effort to make those partnerships pertinent.