Co-branding

Twelve products, twelve brands. Fairly straightforward, no?

Co-branding refers to a line or sub-set of toys with its own name and logo that is additionally also branded as part of another, larger line for some, but not all of its releases. This is different from subline imprints, which are a subset of one specific toy line; if the same subline imprint was used for several concurrent or consecutive lines, it could be considered co-branding. Co-branding is also not the same as a multi-property brand, which spans several different properties; however, there is some overlap, as the Transformers portion of several multi-property brands is additionally also co-branded as part of other Transformers lines.

Furthermore, products can also be co-branded by several companies. This does not refer to all the various licensed products that use Hasbro's logo to identify them as a licensor; it only applies to instances where Hasbro and/or TakaraTomy and/or a licensee are presented as equal originators with all the companies' logos featured, typically when an identical product is released in multiple markets (possibly in the same multilingual packaging in order to minimize costs), but distribution in those markets is handled by different companies.

Examples

Toy lines

• The more widely distributed Built to Rule Transformers sets were co-branded as part of the Armada line, while a few more sets co-branded as part of the Energon line saw limited distribution.
• The Transformers portion of the Titanium Series multi-property brand originally started out as its own line, but was later absorbed into the 2007 Movie line, with some exclusive redecos later released as part of the 2008 Universe and Revenge of the Fallen lines.
• The initial waves of Robot Heroes, while containing Generation 1 characters, were released in packaging design evocative of the packaging style used for the concurrently released 2007 Movie figures. Later waves actually did feature Movie-based characters. The Robot Heroes range later continued as part of the 2008 Universe and Revenge of the Fallen lines.
• Cyberverse originally started out as part of the Dark of the Moon toy line and later continued under Transformers: Prime and its Beast Hunters subline imprint. Three of the four wave 2 figures from Legion Class Series 2 lacked the Prime moniker on their United States market packaging (but retained it on their European market packaging); furthermore, Evac, one of the figures, was additionally also released in Universal Studios packaging. In return, the Beast Hunters figures relegated the Cyberverse logo to the back of the packaging and even dropped it completely from the European market packaging.
• The Transformers portion of Kre-O originally started out as its own line, but later sets were co-branded as part of the Beast Hunters, Age of Extinction and Robots in Disguise lines. In addition, the Awesome Autobots Activity Book is co-branded as Transformers: Prime and Kre-O.
• Likewise, Construct-Bots started out as its own line, but later sets were co-branded as part of the Beast Hunters and Age of Extinction lines.
• The Thrilling 30 anniversary campaign logo appears on Generations and Platinum Edition packaging.
• Platinum Edition itself got absorbed into Age of Extinction in 2014, and continued under Generations in 2015.
• Hasbro's Masterpiece releases were finally given their own line with ongoing numbering in 2013 after having previously been released as part of Classics (2006), Universe (2008) and Transformers (2010), but starting with MP-06 Bluestreak, they got absorbed into Generations.
• The Transformers portion of the Hero Mashers multi-property brand originally started out as it own line, but later waves were co-branded as part of the Robots in Disguise line.

Companies

• Italian Generation 2 toys were co-branded "Hasbro" and "GiG" (the latter of whom still distributed Transformers toys in Italy at the time) on both sides of the packaging.
• Subsequently, during the early days of the Beast Wars toy line, Hasbro (or, more precisely, their now defunct subsidiary Kenner) added Italian to one of the two different types of trilingual packaging used for their European markets at the time. While French/Dutch/German packaging only sported Hasbro logos, English/Spanish/Italian Beast Wars packaging sported a "Kenner" logo on the front and a "GiG" logo on the back, before GiG lost the license for distributing Transformers toys in Italy in favor of Hasbro's own Italian subsidiary starting with the Fuzor and Transmetal figures.

See also

• Multi-brand assortment
• Rebranding
• Subline imprint