I’ve just finished working on a mailing letter for Origen FS, the City-based personal financial services and investment company.

Not so tough, you might think: explain the rates’n'dates of the investment product on offer, make it all sound nice and send off the invoice. The challenge with this one was that it was co-branded with UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph, and the whole thing was going out to a mailing list composed exclusively of the paper’s readers.

Co-branding is always tricky, because you have to bring out the characteristics and values of each brand in a relatively short amount of copy while making sure the two don’t conflict. In this case, the letter was going out with both Origen and Telegraph branding on the top, so there was no fudging the issue. Luckily, the two companies have a number of brand values in common: integrity, reliability, and a sense that they are well-established.

A much harder task is to co-brand two very different businesses. I can’t see the Telegraph getting into a joint venture with Agent Provacateur anytime soon, but when they do I hope I’m not writing the copy…