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How co-branding versus brand extensions drive consumers' evaluations of new products: A brand equity approach
... Co-branding is considered as a form of brand alliance, whereby two or more brands collaborate and form a partnership (Besharat 2010;Kupfer et al. 2018;Voss and Gammoh 2004). Since the beginning of the century, noteworthy collaborations between designer luxury and other fast-fashion brands have been attracting considerable media attention (Lee and Decker 2016). ...
... The literature on co-branding remains inconclusive with regard to defining this type of marketing strategy (Besharat 2010;Leuthesser et al. 2003;Wright et al. 2007). Different terms are used to refer to co-branding, including brand alliance (Park et al. 1996;Washburn et al. 2004;Kupfer et al. 2018), ingredient branding (Leuthesser et al. 2003), and joint branding (Levin and Levin 2000;Rao et al. 1999;Rao and Ruekert 1994). ...
... Different terms are used to refer to co-branding, including brand alliance (Park et al. 1996;Washburn et al. 2004;Kupfer et al. 2018), ingredient branding (Leuthesser et al. 2003), and joint branding (Levin and Levin 2000;Rao et al. 1999;Rao and Ruekert 1994). Nevertheless, for any type of cobranding agreement to exist, the following conditions should be met: (1) the collaboration should be based on an estimated partnership duration, (2) the main aim should be to enter a new or an existing market by jointly developing a new product and (3) the names of both brands should appear on the product (Besharat 2010). ...
Numerous designer luxury brands have been interested in creating co-branding partnerships with the fast-fashion retailer H&M. Despite the recognition by some researchers of the value of examining whether consumer reactions to the co-partnering luxury brands will be affected by the collaboration, to the best of our knowledge, no research to date has examined luxury consumer reactions to such partnerships. Accordingly, this research specifically explores how the collaboration between a luxury brand and a fast-fashion brand impacts on consumer reactions to the luxury brand. Considering the exploratory nature of this study, thirty face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted in the UK to reveal insights into consumer reactions, given the limited knowledge on the subject matter. Six themes emerged from this study: (a) enhanced brand awareness, (b) impaired perception, (c) word-of-mouth, (d) consumer engagement, (e) perceived self-expressiveness and (f) brand avoidance.
... The fourth construct, which according to the proposed hypotheses would be directly influenced by the two previous concepts, is attitudes towards the brand. To measure this concept, the proposals of Gwinner and Bennet (2008) and Besharat (2010) were used and from which the statements have been extracted. From Gwinner and Bennet the extracted items were the following: "I like the X brand"; "X is a very good brand"; "I have a favorable disposition toward X". ...
... From Gwinner and Bennet the extracted items were the following: "I like the X brand"; "X is a very good brand"; "I have a favorable disposition toward X". On the other hand, the following were extracted from Besharat (2010): "My attitude toward this brand is very positive"; "The use of this brand for this product is adequate"; "I believe this brand relative to other brands is likely to be extremely superior"; "This brand can be very useful". The last section, which is part of the hypotheses and therefore the model, is brand loyalty. ...
This research analyzes the relationship between brand perception of users of a sports service and their levels of loyalty. Data were treated with both SPSS 23 and EQS 6.3, using CFA to confirm reliability and validity and creating a model to be tested. Congruence explain 43% of credibility and that these two variables explain up to 73% of trust. Credibility and trust can explain up to 73% of the attitudes, while attitudes would explain up to 50% of loyalty. In the case of sports services, brand perception and its relationship with loyalty remain largely unaddressed. For this reason, it is interesting to carry out research on this subject, bringing new evidence to business reality to help managers to understand how to get loyal users and provide a better service, which is good for the sustainability of the service and to better fulfil the social function carried out by sport services.
... This research examines the role of PBG and PBL within a B2B cobranding context. B2B firms increasingly rely on co-branding or copromotion strategies (e.g., Besharat, 2010;Chiambaretto, Gurău, & Roy, 2016;Helm & Özergin, 2015;Kalafatis, Riley, & Singh, 2014). Brand alliances 1 are considered beneficial because of the potential advantages on offer (Voss & Mohan, 2016a). ...
... Signaling theory is an appropriate framework when studying marketing contexts where information asymmetry is prevalent (Besharat, 2010;Rehme, Nordigården, Ellström, & Chicksand, 2016;Selviaridis, Spring, & Araujo, 2013). Generally, in B2B markets, information asymmetry results in an adverse selection problem (Erdem & Swait, 1998;Shapiro & Stiglitz, 1984), wherein buyers make an imperfect choice due to a lack of information. ...
This research explores the topics of perceived brand globalness (PBG) and perceived brand localness (PBL) in the B2B context—specifically in terms of how brand localness and globalness factor into B2B buyers' decision making. It does so by examining co-branding relationships that involve alliances between well-known global and local B2B brands with unknown B2B brands in order to tease out the specific influence of brand globalness and localness on buyers' quality evaluations of the unknown brand. In other words, it considers the potential spillover effects of well-known PBG and PBL ally brands on lesser-known focal brands in brand alliances. Notably, we analyze data collected from a sample of Brazilian and U.S. based purchase decision-makers and uncover a number of robust findings likely to benefit both academics and practitioners.
... Quando a cooperação resulta num novo produto, é entendido pelos consumidores que as marcas estão comprometidas com uma relação de médio a longo prazo (Leuthesser et al., 2003) e quando as marcas se comprometem numa co-brand é entendido pelos consumidores que as marcas partilham valores semelhantes (Besharat, 2010 (Levi, 2013). ...
... Apesar de não existir uma definição universal, existem duas razões pelas quais essa definição é mais comum, em primeiro lugar existe uma concordância geral que co-branding envolve principalmente a criação de um novo produto, e em segundo lugar, apresenta uma alternativa às extensões de linha de marca para alcançar o crescimento através do desenvolvimento de novos produtos e consequentemente, para os gerentes de marca é uma estratégia atraente de introdução de produtos (Leuthesser et al., 2003). Esta estratégia tem como objetivo primário lançar um novo produto num mercado novo ou já existente, que contenha os nomes e logos de ambas as marcas na sua embalagem (Besharat, 2010). ...
PT
A sociedade atual é influenciada pelos padrões de beleza que são transmitidos pela moda e pelas marcas de beleza. Inevitavelmente os indivíduos desenvolvem-se nestes ideais e todo o mercado funciona com base nos mesmos. No entanto, nos últimos anos a beleza ganhou outras proporções e o interesse em explorar esta indústria por parte de marcas de moda cresceu ainda mais. Abordando a relação entre moda e beleza, esta investigação estuda a ligação entre marcas das duas áreas que surgiram com uma natureza de co-branding. A investigação incide principalmente em marcas de moda de luxo, explorando as razões e significados da sua presença na indústria da beleza através de co-branding entre marcas de luxo e marcas de beleza acessíveis. Para conseguir entender esta estratégia de negócio, é crucial estudar comportamentos de consumo da sociedade, assim como os efeitos psicológicos que estas indústrias têm na sociedade atual, principalmente a atração que traz o objeto de luxo. Um dos objetivos fulcrais da investigação é entender se esta extensão da marca de moda adiciona ou retira valor à marca de luxo, sendo que torna a marca de luxo por vezes mais acessível e “acessível” não é o adjetivo mais comum no luxo. Esta é uma estratégia que está a ser cada vez mais popular em vários sectores e as suas consequências, tanto positivas ou negativas podem não ser imediatas. A colaboração das marcas pode resultar em intenção de compra ou desmistificar o desejo pela marca de luxo. Para conseguir analisar esta relação, são definidos conceitos de moda, beleza, luxo, consumo, marca e co-branding. Exemplos de marcas que representam esta relação nos últimos tempos são tomadas como exemplos para análise: Balmain x L’Oréal e Moschino x Sephora, ajudando a concluir e a verificar que esta estratégia tem mostrado potencial para obter resultados muito satisfatórios sendo inovadora e atrativa. O co-branding, apesar dos riscos associados, que podem ser calculados e evitados, demonstra- se ser uma estratégia sólida, positiva e promissora para as marcas de moda.
EN
The actual society is influenced by the beauty standards that are communicated by the beauty and fashion brands. Inevitable the individuals develop in this ideals and the whole market works based on them. Meanwhile, in the last years the beauty won other proportions and the interest from fashion brands in exploring the beauty industry has grown even more. Approaching the relationship between fashion and beauty. This investigation studies the connection between brands from the two fields that have emerged with a co-branding strategy. The investigation focuses mainly fashion luxury brands, exploring the reasons and meanings of its presence at the beauty industry through a co-branding strategy between luxury brands and accessible beauty brands. To understand this business strategy its crucial study consumer behavior of the society, like the psychologic effects that these industries have in actual society, mostly the attraction that brings the luxury object. One of the main objectives of the investigation is to understand if the luxury fashion brand extension adds or takes value to the brand, because it transforms the luxury brand into a more accessible brand and “accessible” it’s not the most common characteristic in the luxury sector. This strategy its becoming more popular in various markets and its consequences, positives or negatives, may not be immediate. The collaboration of brands may result in intention of buying or demystify the desire for the luxury brand. To analyze this relationship, are defined concepts of fashion, beauty, luxury and co-branding. Examples of brands that represent this relation in the last times are taken has example for analyses: Balmain x L’Oréal and Moschino x Sephora, helping to conclude and verify that this strategy has showed to have potential to obtain very satisfied results being innovative and attractive. The co- branding, despite the associated risks, that can be calculated and avoided is proving to be a solid, positive and promising strategy for fashion brands.
... At the same time, co-branding has evoked a wide range of academic research activities (Cunha et al., 2015;Huertas-García et al., 2017;Mishra et al., 2017). While one research stream examines the potential benefits of co-branding activities (Park et al., 1996;Washburn et al., 2000Washburn et al., , 2004, other streams focus on how to select the right partner for a (co-)brand alliance (Lee and Decker, 2016;Van der Lans et al., 2014) and empirically explore how consumers evaluate co-branded products (Besharat, 2010;Bouten et al., 2011). However, the findings still remain fragmented (Besharat and Langan, 2014). ...
... Regarding these two brands, consumers have salient brand associations in mind that may be transferred to the co-brand as well as to the partnering brand (s) through spillover. However, prior research has often focused on cobrands between an unknown brand and a well-known brand (Besharat, 2010;James, 2005;Voss and Gammoh, 2004;Washburn et al., 2004). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate what influence the perceptions of two parent brands have on the perception of a newly formed co-brand. Furthermore, it elaborates whether respondents’ evaluations of the parent brands, their familiarity towards the parent brands and their usage of the parent brands affect this influence.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on both cognitive consistency and information integration theory, this paper proposes a model-based approach to quantify the parent brands’ influence on the co-brand’s perception. Using an empirical study with 317 respondents collected by a professional online market research firm, this paper highlights the benefits of this model-based approach.
Findings
The results indicate that the perception of a co-brand arises from a weighted merge of the parent brands’ perceptions. The findings further reveal that the better (worse) a parent brand’s evaluation is in contrast to the other parent brand’s evaluation, the more (less) familiar a parent brand is in contrast to the other parent brand, and the more (less) frequent a parent brand is used in contrast to the other parent brand, the larger (smaller) is its influence on the co-brand’s perception.
Originality/value
The findings shed light on the formation of a co-brand’s perception which can be crucial when selecting the right co-branding partner. Additionally, by quantifying the parent brands’ influence on the perception of the co-brand, this model-based approach helps brand managers to analyze co-brand pairings beforehand and select the best pairing in accordance with their goals.
... With regard to the instrument used to collect data to measure the brand perceptions of users of the sports service, a survey was created based on validated scales that had been used in the existing literature in each of the analysis sections. In the case of attitudes towards the brand, the information was drawn from Gwinner and Bennet (2008) and Besharat (2010), and for credibility, the statements of Sweeney and Swait (2008) were used. To collect information on the variable of brand equity or brand capital, the Besharat (2010) proposal was followed, while for the case of brand personality, the Schlesinger and Cervera (2008) scale was adapted for the context of sports services. ...
... The results extracted in this research and the proposed relationships between the different variables coincide with studies carried out by other researchers, confirming that in the context analysed, these relationships develop in a similar way. Attitudes towards the brand have proven to be a good indicator of future intentions of users to purchase a good or service (Besharat, 2010;Gwinner and Bennett, 2008;Lee, Byon, Ammon and Park, 2016). This relationship has been analysed throughout the literature and not only is seen in traditional commercial exchange but also is an aspect of the growing digital environment. ...
This research aims to analyse the brand perceptions of users a sports service and to subsequently carry out a comparison of the results based on gender. We aim to determine what perceptions men and women have of the different variables related to the brand perception of a sports service, what their preferences are when choosing a brand and what aspects are the most important in that election. In addition, we aim to identify which aspects are perceived to be significantly different depending on gender and which of those aspects are those that significantly predict loyalty and future purchase intentions for both genders. Mean comparisons will be carried out using T tests for independent samples and linear regression analysis to obtain the predictive information of
the aforementioned variables. This information will allow us to better understand the behaviour of consumers of sports services based on their gender, which can provide valuable information to managers to guide their marketing actions in one way or another, depending on whether the target audience for such actions includes the male or female users of your service.
... Research applying signaling theory has shown that firms can rather effectively adapt to provide the necessary signals to establish balance in information between the firms and customers in B2C relationships. For instance, signaling theory has been employed to address price matching through consumer price perceptions (Srivastava & Lurie, 2004), etailing pricing (Mitra & Fay, 2010), return policies (Bonifield, Cole, & Schultz, 2010), co-branding versus brand extensions (Besharat, 2010), intangible brand antecedents (Arslanagic-Kalajdzic & Zabkar, 2017), and formation of online trust and assurance (Arnold, Landry, & Reynolds, 2007). Furthermore, service guarantee strategies have been utilized to signal levels of assurance and fairness in resolving service failures (Crisafulli & Singh, 2016). ...
... B2B firms also benefit from the credibility generated by brand stability in reducing perceived transactional risk (Leischnig & Enke, 2011). Moreover, service offerings and brand alliances have become a lucrative way for B2B firms to signal the quality of their offerings (Besharat, 2010;Helm & Özergin, 2015). The appropriate use of signals provides firms with a means to convey intent and the overall positioning of market offerings to potential customers and targeted segments. ...
Today's marketplace requires B2B motor carriers to connect with shippers in salient ways. To accomplish this, B2B carriers communicate signals of service quality in order to position themselves uniquely from the competition. Signaling theory describes how inequity in information between parties is filled by sending signals to convey missing information (Spence, 1973). Signaling theory was used as a foundation to investigate information used by B2B carriers to signal service quality and create positioning strategies. Results of a content analysis of 490 B2B motor carrier websites for signals of 12 dimensions of service quality are used to develop a typology of U.S. B2B motor carriers. These are: Minimalist, User-Friendly, and Safety First. Associations with firm revenues, firm size, credit score, and number of NAICS codes used are discussed along with implications.
... In other words, the co-brand is evaluated as being worse than the average of the two partnering monobrands. Extant evidence reports that cobranding does not result in the expected outcomes, but shows a lower willingness to pay [22,23], lower perceptions of quality of subsequent co-branding between the partnering brands [15], or the absence of any effect on brand evaluations [24]. However, only a few studies refer to adaptive learning models to explain the potential negative feedback effects of co-branding strategies [13,15]. ...
While food research has paid considerable attention to the effect of brand names on brand evaluation, the role of co-branding strategies and hence simultaneous exposure to two different brand names is under-researched. Against this background, we investigated the overexpectation effect in the context of food co-branding. More specifically, we explored to what extent food co-branding can harm brand evaluations of the co-brand and the brand level of the partner. In doing so, we challenged the conventional wisdom that co-branding leads to higher brand evaluations than those of monobrands. Results from two online experiments confirmed the theoretical reasoning derived from adaptive learning models: combining two brands results in an overexpectation effect, which manifests in a decrease in levels of brand evaluation for the co-brand compared to the partnering brands before co-brand exposure. Brand strength and brand fit moderate this effect.
... Marka ittifakları hakkında algılanan uyum ile marka ittifakı hakkında tüketicilerin sahip olduğu tutumlar arasındaki ilişkiler çeşitli çalışmalar tarafından ortaya konmuştur. Tüketicilerin uluslararası marka ittifakı hakkında algıladıkları ürün uyumu, marka uyumu ve orijin ülke uyumu, uluslararası marka ittifakı hakkındaki tüketici tutumları ile ilişkilidir (Bluemelhuber vd., 2007;Lee vd., 2013;Besharat, 2010). Satın alma niyeti bağlamında ise; marka ittifakında bir araya gelen markalar arasındaki ürün uyumu ve marka uyumu tüketiciler tarafından yüksek olarak algılandığında, marka ittifakı hakkındaki satın alma niyetinin de yüksek olacağı ifade edilerek, aralarındaki ilişki ortaya konmuştur (Ashton ve Scott, 2011). ...
Türkiye’de bir yerel ve bir yabancı marka arasında oluşturulacak uluslararası marka ittifakının başarısı ile ilişkili olabilecek faktörlerin ortaya konması, Türkiye’de uluslararası marka ittifakı yatırımı yapmayı düşünen yabancı ve yerel marka yöneticilerine yol gösterici önemli katkılar sağlayacaktır. Ayrıca, Türkiye literatüründe uluslararası marka ittifakları ve bu ittifakların başarısı ile ilişkili olabilecek faktörler hakkındaki çalışmaların yok denecek kadar az olması nedeniyle bu çalışma, ilgili boşluğa katkı yaparak önemli bir eksikliği giderecektir. Bu çalışma, Türkiye’deki uluslararası marka ittifakı literatürüne ve Türkiye’de uluslararası marka ittifakı yatırımı yapmayı düşünen işletmelere sağlayacağı katkılar nedeni ile önemlidir. Bu bakımdan araştırmanın amacı; uluslararası marka ittifaklarının başarısı ile ilişkili olabilecek faktörlerin tespit edilerek geçerlilik ve güvenilirliklerinin sorgulanması ve böylelikle işletmelere yol gösterici önerilerde bulunabilmektir. Veriler, İstanbul, İzmir ve Ankara’da, kolayda örnekleme ve yüz yüze anket yöntemi ile toplanmış, 600 kişilik örneklem büyüklüğüne ulaşılmıştır. Katılımcılar uluslararası marka ittifakı senaryosunu okuyup, senaryo doğrultusunda anket sorularını yanıtlamışlardır. Verilerin analizinde keşfedici ve doğrulayıcı faktör analizi ile korelasyon analizinden faydalanılmıştır. Çalışmanın sonucunda; uluslararası marka ittifaklarının başarısı ile ilişkili olabilecek faktörler olarak algılanan uyum, etnosentrizm, algılanan marka yabancılığı, tutum ve satın alma niyeti değişkenlerinin geçerli ve güvenilir yapılar oldukları ve aralarında anlamlı ilişkilerin olduğu bulunmuştur.
Showing factors related with success of an international brand alliance formed between a local and a foreign brand in Turkey, would provide vital and directive information for managers of local and foreign brands who consider investing in Turkey by an international brand alliance. Furthermore, because there are hardly any studies about international brand alliances and possible factors related with their success in Turkish literature, this study would make a significant contribution in this field. So it can be said that this study is important because of its contribution to the international brand alliance literature in Turkey and to firms considering investment in Turkey by an international brand alliance. In this regard, the aim of the study is determining factors that can affect the success of an international brand alliance and examining the validity and reliability of these factors. By doing so, giving directive suggestions to firms is also aimed. The data is gathered in Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara via convenience sampling and face-to-face questionnaire from a sample group consisting of 600 people. Participants, firstly read a scenario about an international brand alliance and then answered the questions according to the scenario. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis is used to analyse the data. The results indicate that the factors of perceived fit, ethnocentrism, perceived brand foreignness, attitude and purchase intentions are valid and reliable structures. It is also determined that there are significant relations between these factors.
... Recently, management scholars and practitioners have become increasingly interested in the phenomenon of family business branding (e.g., Beck & Prügl, 2018;Binz, Hair, Pieper, & Baldauf, 2013;Craig, Dibrell, & Davis, 2008;Krappe, Goutas, & von Schlippe, 2011;Lude & Prügl, 2018;Zellweger, Kellermanns, Eddleston, & Memili, 2012), which is also reflected in recent reviews (Binz Astrachan, Botero, Astrachan, & Prügl, 2018;Beck, 2016;Sageder, Mitter, & Feldbauer-Durstmüller, 2018). The importance of brand management, in general, is indisputable, as a strong brand, for example, enhances consumer value creation (Anker, Sparks, Moutinho, & Gr€ onroos, 2015), enhances customers' brand loyalty (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001), helps distinguish from competitors (Aaker, 2004;Kastanakis & Balabanis, 2012), positively influences new product evaluations (Besharat, 2010), and thus increases company performance through brand equity (LaPlaca, 2010). Consequently, a strong brand increases firm value and adds to the survival of the firm. ...
Building a family business brand allows family firms to leverage a valuable idiosyncratic resource: their family nature (we are a family business). But, this is only possible if the owning family decides to reveal a family firm image (we want others to know that we are a family business). Family firms largely vary in that regard: While some family firms do strongly emphasize a family firm image, others do so at a lower level or not at all. Accordingly, this study applies mixed methods exploring and testing antecedents of the degree of revealing the family nature of the business in the context of German Mittelstand firms. In study 1, we develop hypotheses for the antecedents of that important managerial decision based on the family business literature as well as interviews with family firm executives. In study 2, we collect data (N = 196) from family firm CEOs to test our hypotheses. Results show that out of eleven antecedents, seven are significantly related to the degree of communicating a family firm image. For example, the tradition orientation of the enterprising family or the number of major business partners being family firms is positively linked to the degree of revealing the family nature, while innovation intensity of the industry or the degree of internationalization of the family firm show a negative relationship with communicating a stronger family firm image. A supplementary exploration of the link between gradual revelation of the family nature and performance on brand and firm level further serves as an inspiration for future research.
... Customer-brand and brand-brand congruence Besharat (2010) US Consumers' purchase intentions regarding a co-branded product by two high-equity brands are significantly greater than those for the same product produced through collaboration between a high-and low-equity brand. ...
Purpose: with rising globalization, Western and Eastern brands are collaborating and co-branding at an increasing rate. Drawing on the dialectical self theory, this paper investigates the effect of the consumer dialectical self on co-branding encompassing Western and East Asian cultural brand personality traits.
Design/methodology/approach: two studies were conducted using Chinese participants to examine the effects of the dialectical self on co-brand evaluation under single-personality and dual-personality conditions and to explore the mediating role of ideal social self-congruence and the moderating role of product type (high vs. low conspicuous).
Findings: the findings suggest, that counterintuitive to the received wisdom, the dialectical self negatively influences one’s attitude toward a co-brand in the dual-personality condition only. Further, ideal social self-congruence mediates the relationship between the dialectical self and dual-personality co-brand evaluation in the high conspicuous product type condition only.
Practical implications: this paper provides important implications for international marketing managers regarding co-branding strategies and how managing the dialectical self can lead to positive co-brand evaluations. Moreover, it shows the need for highlighting ideal social self-congruence for co-branding success for particular product types.
Originality: this paper examines co-branding from a novel perspective of consumer dialectical self and shows the pivotal role it plays when brands carry varying cultural traits engage in co-branding. By identifying the role of the dialectical self and the important mediator and moderator, the paper fulfils an important gap in co-branding literature and offers key implications.<br/
... First, we determine that when alliance partners explicitly refer to each other, this positively influences the perceived corporate credibility of the firm (s) involved in the co-creation. In line with signaling theory (Besharat, 2010;Gammoh et al., 2006;Rao and Ruekert, 1994), we show that the way in which partners refer to each other acts as a signal for the unobservable relational embeddedness of the partners. Consumers base their perception of relational embeddedness on whether or not allies explicitly mention the other partner's brand, and a higher relational embeddedness positively influences the corporate credibility of the company. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the effects of explicit partner brand mentions (as opposed to a mere partnership mention) in communications by brand allies on consumers’ purchase intention and willingness to pay for an innovation, as mediated by the perceived relational embeddedness of the allies and their respective perceived corporate credibility. In Study 1, the authors investigate the effects of (reciprocal) explicit brand mentions by both allies (as opposed to by a single ally) and further test whether explicit brand mentions moderate spillover effects from the ally. In Study 2, the authors investigate the effect of reciprocity of explicit brand mentions and whether this is moderated by a company’s experience.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct two online experiments. Study 1 (N = 216) is a four-level between-subjects experiment (single communication by Partner A with explicit brand mention, single communication by Partner B with explicit brand mention, explicit brand mentions by both allies and mere partnership mention by both allies) where participants judge a social alliance related to a new tablet. Study 2 (N = 376) builds upon these findings in a 4 (explicit brand mentions by both allies; mere partnership mention by both allies; explicit brand mention by Partner A, mere partnership mention by Partner B; explicit brand mention by partner B, mere partnership mention by Partner A) × 2 (Partner A experience: established vs startup) between-subjects experimental design for a co-created battery.
Findings
Spillover effects from one ally to the other are stronger with explicit brand mentions than with a mere partnership mention. There is no added value of two allies communicating over one, provided that both partners explicitly mention their partner brand. However, when allies do communicate separately, it is crucial that an explicit brand mention is reciprocated. This effect is explained by an increase in the perceived relational embeddedness of the partners, which in turn positively influences their corporate credibility. This effect does not differ depending on a company’s experience.
Originality/value
This research is one of the first to study effects of how a brand alliance is communicated and extends previous studies on the effects of communication about brand and co-creation alliances by demonstrating that communications moderate spillover effects, that brand mention reciprocity is crucial, and by introducing the concept of perceived relational embeddedness.
... Another study revealed that the presence of at least one high-equity brand in a cobranding strategy is sufficient to improve consumer evaluations of new products. However, the findings of the second study show there is no significant difference between co-branding and brand extension in terms of consumer evaluations of identical products [4]. ...
... Particularly, to produce favourable responses, users need to use positive language exuding confidence, credibility, trustworthiness, and optimism (Aktas et al., 2016;Avey et al., 2011;Davis et al., 2017;Martens et al., 2007). This view is supported by previous research on brands showing that when brands fail to transmit positive signals about their characteristics and quality, customers are likely to dismiss their products (Besharat, 2010). ...
This paper investigates whether language and associated message framing (low-cost signal) can provide a solution to the risks generated by asymmetric information in P2P lending, drawing on the signalling and message-framing theories. First, it examines the extent to which message framing is associated with funding outcomes in the context of P2P lending; second, it investigates whether positive message framing reinforces the positive impact of credit ratings (high-cost signal) on funding outcomes. Our analysis is conducted on a dataset of 33,028 listings of potential borrowers from a Chinese P2P lending platform using the Heckman selection models. We find that the use of positively framed messages is positively associated with positive funding outcomes and enhances the positive impact of the credit ratings on funding outcomes. Our results contribute to the literature on the effectiveness of low-cost signals in of Internet-based interactions while highlighting complementarities between different types of signals in P2P lending.
... Co-branding aims to leverage the equity of the brands involved (especially the stronger ones) to increase the perceived value of the co-branded offer (Helmig et al., 2008, Leuthesser et al., 2003. What makes co-branding agreements strategically attractive are the so-called "spill-over effects," i.e., the benefits resulting from the association F o r P e e r R e v i e w between two or more brands (Simonin & Ruth, 1998;Besharat, 2010), including higher brand awareness and better market positioning for all the allied brands (Ghosh & John, 2009;McCarthy & Norris, 1999). ...
Over the past few years, the fashion market has undergone continuous and far-reaching processes of change and renewal. The unexpected contamination between and the hybridization dynamics of fast fashion, sportswear, and luxury fashion have given rise to the birth of a new product market category that successfully recombines their elements and characteristics: luxury streetwear. Off-White, which was only created in 2013 but already chosen as the most popular brand in the world by 2019, undoubtedly – more than any other brand – led this revolutionary trend inside the fashion industry. Owing to its unique ability to selectively draw on youth culture and creatively merge it with elements that have traditionally been associated with luxury fashion (e.g., the garments’ prestige, quality, and class-distinctiveness), Off-White was able to access the conservative and hyper-competitive luxury arena even as it questioned and restyled the market’s canons and paradigms. However, Off-White’s success cannot solely be attributed to the disruptive ideas of a visionary artist, founder Virgil Abloh, nor to the mere creation of products perceived as unique. The rise and success of Off-White happened within the framework of a systematic implementation of a competitive strategy that is substantiated in an eclectic use of the marketing mix variables and the development of virtuous collaborations with other established brands. It is a strategy that, given Off-White’s astonishing financial performances and brand-related results, cannot be considered anything less than a success.
... Moore, 1995;Moore 1993, Moore 2006Iansiti and Levien, 2004). Co-branding has also been studied from many viewpoints, such as co-created brands in multi-stakeholder ecosystems (Gyrd-Jones and Kornum, 2013), the local and global company co-branding (Mohan, Brown, Sichtmann & Schoefer, 2018), brand equity and trial effects of co-branding (Washburn, Till & Priluck, 2000), and the customer attitudes for co-branding versus brand extension (Besharat, 2010). ...
... The firms would make improve for the market position while their focus to improve the resources-advantage, that they have many premise for vary industrial and costly information's also heterogeneous demand. Furthermore, the consumers doing evaluation the brand that usage had many variety decision, that could impact to making purchase behavior for the future utility (Besharat, 2010;Seo and Jang, 2013). ...
The brand usage intent would conduct the market position with competitive advantage that could be bridge the right tract for the corporate for not making misguide in the heterogeneous industrial competitiveness and the customer brand engagement determined. This study was inquiry of fulfillment the research gap with the more resonance of the brand with halo effect then the brand equity. Furthermore, the research methods conducted with quantitative methods and design with descriptive correlation also used the confirmed strategy in structural equation modeling. The area sampling was fit with the 107 students in different situations and the result research was entire hypothesis’ were confirmed and the marginal fit research model on the market-based management research. The corporate should building best interaction within the compatible smart- computer user with digitalize platform.Keywords: the brand equity, brand usage intent, higher education.JEL Classifications: I23, M3DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/irmm.8628
... Although this body of research has provided rich and useful insights into the factors that determine the strength of the relationship between perceived barriers and innovation resistance, less is understood about how brands influence consumers' evaluations of radical innovations (Aboulnasr & Tran, 2019;Brexendorf et al., 2015;Nedergaard & Gyrd-Jones, 2013). Brands are, arguably, any company's greatest asset, and evaluations of radical innovation launched by a brand are likely to be influenced by consumers' knowledge, perceptions, and relationship with the brand (Besharat, 2010). ...
Consumer resistance is a major barrier to diffusing radical innovation into mainstream markets. While recent studies have highlighted the influence that brands might have on innovation adoption decisions, surprisingly little is understood about the role of brand in overcoming consumer resistance to radical innovation such as Artificial-Intelligence (AI) technology. To address this, we investigate consumer resistance to AI-powered technology in the context of autonomous vehicles. Specifically, this study builds on the self–brand connection and brand concept literatures to examine: (1) the mechanism through which self–brand connection influences radical innovation adoption by mitigating consumer resistance; (2) how this mechanism is moderated by the brand concept (conservation vs openness); and (3) how brands can effectively overcome consumer resistance through marketing communications. By means of three empirical studies, we find that self–brand connections are positively associated with intentions to adopt radical innovation and that this effect is mediated by reduced risk barriers (Study 1). We further demonstrate that the influence of self–brand connection is much lower for conservation brands than for openness brands (Study 2). Finally, we show that conservation brands can leverage consumers’ self–brand connection when they effectively enhance their innovation capabilities through marketing communications (Study 3).
... The instrument used was a survey consisting of different scales aimed at measuring the different variables that are included in the study. The credibility dimension was obtained from Sweeney and Swait (2008), the trust dimension from Hur, Kim, and Kim (2014), the congruence dimension from Grace and O'Cass (2005), the attitudes from Gwinner and Bennet (2008) and Besharat (2010), the loyalty from Yoo and Donthu (2001), Lee and Leh (2011) and Tong and Hawley (2009) and finally, the recommendation dimension was obtained from Hightower, Brady, and Baker (2002). Below, in Table 1, we can see the detail of the items used. ...
Brand perception is a key element in achieving business success: how a brand is perceived by current and potential users determines what they think and their disposition towards the brand. The users’ perception also determines whether they will perceive the sports service as offering a greater quality or value than other services, whether they will be more loyal, or whether they will recommend the service. This paper analyses the brand perception of users of a public sports service, creating a model of structural equations that analyses how credibility and trust influence a user’s congruence with the brand and the generation of positive attitudes towards the brand and how these variables influence loyalty levels and recommendations. The results indicate that the proposed model can explain the variables of trust, congruence, attitudes, loyalty and word of mouth by more than 60%. The study finds that credibility influences trust but that credibility in itself does not cause a congruence with the brand, whereas trust does. Similarly, trust does not generate attitudes towards the brand but credibility and congruence do. Congruence generates loyalty but attitudes do not, and congruence, attitudes and loyalty influence recommendation to a similar extent, with congruence having the highest influence.
... Marka ittifakları hakkında algılanan uyum ile marka ittifakı hakkında tüketicilerin sahip olduğu tutumlar arasındaki ilişkiler çeşitli çalışmalar tarafından ortaya konmuştur. Tüketicilerin uluslararası marka ittifakı hakkında algıladıkları ürün uyumu, marka uyumu ve orijin ülke uyumu, uluslararası marka ittifakı hakkındaki tüketici tutumları ile ilişkilidir (Bluemelhuber vd., 2007;Lee vd., 2013;Besharat, 2010). Satın alma niyeti bağlamında ise; marka ittifakında bir araya gelen markalar arasındaki ürün uyumu ve marka uyumu tüketiciler tarafından yüksek olarak algılandığında, marka ittifakı hakkındaki satın alma niyetinin de yüksek olacağı ifade edilerek, aralarındaki ilişki ortaya konmuştur (Ashton ve Scott, 2011). ...
Showing factors related with success of an international brand alliance formed between a local and a foreign brand in Turkey, would provide vital and directive information for managers of local and foreign brands who consider investing in Turkey by an international brand alliance. Furthermore, because there are hardly any studies about international brand alliances and possible factors related with their success in Turkish literature, this study would make a significant contribution in this field. So it can be said that this study is important because of its contribution to the international brand alliance literature in Turkey and to firms considering investment in Turkey by an international brand alliance. In this regard, the aim of the study is determining factors that can affect the success of an international brand alliance and examining the validity and reliability of these factors. By doing so, giving directive suggestions to firms is also aimed. The data is gathered in Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara via convenience sampling and face-to-face questionnaire from a sample group consisting of 600 people. Participants, firstly read a scenario about an international brand alliance and then answered the questions according to the scenario. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis is used to analyse the data. The results indicate that the factors of perceived fit, ethnocentrism, perceived brand foreignness, attitude and purchase intentions are valid and reliable structures. It is also determined that there are significant relations between these factors.
... There is a set of pre-conditions that favor co-branding success, such as a long-term agreement, the visibility of co-branders, congruence of brand identities (Xiao and Lee, 2014), launching of new products (Besharat, 2010) and the country-of-origin effect ( Lee et al., 2013). These pre-conditions as well as the overall compatibility of brand partners (e.g. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to further the consumer services theory in financial services marketing by examining how perceived benefits influence consumer intention-to-use a co-branded credit card and further how intention-to-use is moderated by involvement.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model is developed and tested. A convenience sample of users of a co-branded credit card was surveyed. The responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Results show a strong association between perceived benefits and co-brand equity and between co-brand equity and co-brand preference, as well as between perceived benefits and intention-to-use. The research also identifies four perceived benefits of a co-branded credit card. They also show that highly involved consumers are less affected by perceived benefits than their low involvement counterparts.
Research limitations/implications
Further research might consider co-branding across categories of services and explore the ambivalent results of co-brand preference in the mode. This research is limited by the use of a convenience sample and a cross-sectional survey. A probability sample and a longitudinal element to the study would have added weight to the study’s findings.
Practical implications
Managers with co-branding responsibilities should focus on improving the perceived benefits of co-branded credit cards.
Social implications
This study has a wider application to understanding how co-branding services may be applied in not-for-profit situations, specifically affinity card co-branding, thus generating greater revenue for charitable and social concerns.
Originality/value
This research advances research in the financial services consumer theory by demonstrating a strong association between perceived benefits and intention-to-use a co-branded credit card, distinguishing between the behavioral traits of consumers with high and low levels of involvement. It thus advances the consumer theory in co-branding.
... On the other hand, the trust scale is composed of three items extracted from the contribution of Hur et al. (2014), and the brand recognition scale is based on the proposal of Tong and Hawley (2009) with three statements. Finally, the attitude scale is composed of four items (Besharat, 2010;Gwinner & Bennett, 2008) and the future intentions scale contains four items and is based on the contribution of Zeithaml et al. (1996). As shown in the results section, all the scales that make up the instrument show adequate psychometric properties, with composite reliability (CR) values above .70 ...
The aim of this research is to test the role of corporate image in predicting credibility, trust, and brand recognition. In addition, it is intended to verify whether these variables can explain the attitudes and future intentions of fitness centre users to better understand their behaviour. Through an online survey, the opinions of 325 fitness centre users were collected regarding the previously mentioned variables. A structural equation model was made by means of EQS 6.4 to confirm, first, the reliability of the scales used and subsequently test the different relationships between variables. The results show the importance of corporate image as a starting point to explain future intentions. Between 78% and 91% of the variance of credibility, trust, and recognition and, consequently, up to 90% of attitudes and 62% of future intentions can be explained by the equation. Thus, managers should not only focus on the variables related to the experience or performance of the service but also attend to brand variables. This research represents a contribution to the literature on brand perception and its relationship with consumer behaviour in fitness centres, an uncommon topic in this context.
... La escala actitud hacia la marca está compuesta por un total de seis ítems provenientes de dos artículos distintos. Los tres primeros ítems provienen de Gwinner y Bennett (2008) y los tres ítems restantes de Besharat (2010). Todos los ítems muestran que hay correlaciones buenas entre ellos con valores comprendidos entre 0,55 y 0,76. ...
The esports sector has burst onto the social scene, especially among the younger population, and sports managers need to be part of the growth of the sector. The purpose of this article is to find out the brand perception among players and non-players of esports events in the Valencian Community, Spain during the year 2019. For the analysis we used a questionnaire composed of 82 items divide into 12 scales that have shown good reliability indices. The results indicate that the scales obtained positive mean values, with the highest scores for future intentions, brand personality and brand credibility. Players always scored higher than non-players with significant differences in corporate reputation and perceived value. Results that allow the sport manager to obtain information to contribute to the improvement of marketing strategies.
... Beck et al. (2020;p. 95) affirm that this is because a strong brand "enhances consumer value creation (Anker et al. 2015), enhances customers' brand loyalty (Chaudhuri and Holbrook 2001), helps distinguish them from competitors (Aaker 2004;Kastanakis and Balabanis, 2012), positively influences new product evaluations (Besharat 2010), and thus increases company performance through brand equity (LaPlaca 2010)." Corporate brand becomes the face of the organization (Balmer and Gray 2003). ...
This study investigates whether a projected family firm image can affect access to financial resources, which is key to providing broader strategic options and meeting short-term financial needs, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Building on the signaling literature, we consider the family SME leaders’ perspective and conceptually and empirically examine whether they believe a projected family firm image acts as a credible signal to the lender. We also examine additional boundary conditions influencing the family SME’s projected image–access to financial resources relationship, by specifically investigating whether firm age and size alter the degree of the signaling effect. Our unique data on 289 Spanish family SMEs reveal that projected family firm image can act as an attractive signal to lenders, leading to better access to financial resources for SMEs. Furthermore, firm size reinforces the role of the projected family firm image as a positive signal. These findings address an important practical issue in terms of family firm stakeholder perceptions, offering contributions to the corporate branding, family business, and financing literature.
... The term, 'co-branding', was firstly used in the beginning of the second half of the last century; however, it was not defined until the end of the 1990's. As in the case for co-operation, there is no globally accepted terminology or definition of co-branding (Besharat 2010;Leuthesser L., Kohli Ch. & Suri 2003). Existing literature highlights the concept of cobranding through a variety of approaches, that include brand alliance (Boad 1999;Lai 2005); composite branding (Leuthesser L., Kohli Ch. & Suri 2003;Park, Y. & Shocker 1996); component branding, ingredient branding (Desai & Keller 2002;Hesková & Šarchoň 2009;Keller 2007); dual branding (Hesková & Šarchoň 2009;Levin & Levin 2000;Rao, Qu & Ruekert 1999); and brand bundling (Hesková & Šarchoň 2009;Keller 2007). ...
... For example, empirical evidence suggests that using a strong brand to promote a charity cause does not improve its brand equity (Lafferty, Goldsmith, & Hult, 2004), but a positive effect is present for brands of moderate strength. Likewise, research indicates the absence of any additional effect for brand alliances constituted by two already strong brands (Besharat, 2010;Venkatesh & Mahajan, 1997). Ceiling effects represent the theoretical explanation for the absence of a contribution by a main brand on the co-brand (Simonin & Ruth, 1998). ...
Food safety is a public health issue of paramount importance. In this regard, blockchain has emerged as a promising technology that allows users to effectively and efficiently record the origin and flow of products and eliminate or reduce harmful food fraud. Consumers can benefit from this development by receiving up-to-date and verifiable information about the origins and delivery routes of their purchases. Drawing on signaling theory and the results of two experimental studies with 151 and 152 participants, respectively, we investigate how the use of blockchain to trace food products impacts consumers’ perception of product quality as a mediating variable and subsequently their purchase intention. Our framework further considers brand familiarity as a moderating variable. The findings from the two experiments show that blockchain labels as a signaling mechanism in food supply chains help to strengthen consumers’ perceived quality of food products, which, in turn, increases their purchase intention. This effect is more pronounced for less familiar brands, which is valuable information for managers who want to build a brand’s reputation. From an academic perspective, we highlight the applicability of signaling theory to identify blockchain-based traceability systems as important drivers of perceived product quality and consequently purchase intention.
... The focus of signaling research has been on signals' effects on pre-purchase beliefs (e.g., expected seller quality; review detailed in section 0) but researchers have argued that signaling could go beyond the pre-purchase stage to influence future purchase decisions, such as repurchase intention. Besharat (2010Besharat ( , p. 1242 argued that "signal acts as an indicator that reduces the likelihood of a bad outcome for the buyer...Otherwise, consumers will punish the brand by choosing not to repurchase". Dutta and Biswas (2005, p. 76) stated that "signal default might lower consumer repurchase intention". ...
After-sale service quality is a key to differentiating an online seller from numerous others and attracting returning customers. However, new customers cannot readily discern the quality of unfamiliar sellers. Sellers often try to reduce the information asymmetry and signal their quality by ensuring good website interface usability, considering that the website is the main point of contact with online shoppers. Most research on signaling has focused on its pre-purchase effects. Although researchers have argued that signaling could affect future purchase decisions, how signaling influences repurchase intention has not been detailed. This study proposes a model of the influence based on the signaling theory and expectation-confirmation model. The model posits that a signal influences an online shopper's expectation and the expectation-confirmation subsequently determines repurchase intention. The model was tested with pre-purchase and post-purchase data collected in a two-stage survey and analyzed with structural equation modeling. Findings indicate that signaling goes beyond the pre-purchase stage of initial purchase to influence repurchase intention. This indicates that signaling has longer-term effect than that typically examined in signaling research and further research on the effect is needed. For practice, the findings indicate that online sellers need to send realistic signals to attract returning customers.
This research is related to brand perception and its implications for the management of services, especially for hedonic services. The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of perceived brand quality on credibility and attitudes towards this perceived quality from the point of view of users, as well as whether that relationship could trigger increased loyalty and recommendations. The survey was conducted with users of a public sports service located in Valencia, Spain, and the analysis of the data and the creation of the structural model was carried out using structural equation modeling (SEM). Its results have confirmed the influence of perceived quality on credibility but not on attitudes. On the other hand, the effects of credibility and attitudes on loyalty have been significant because of the influence of credibility on recommendations and attitudes. Conversely, attitudes have not had a direct influence on the word of mouth (WOM). This type of study, represent a novel contribution, because the studies of brand perception in sports services are practically non-existent, especially in the case of public sports services. In addition, the fact of using this type of methodology is in line with the most current works. Therefore, it supposes to contribute relevant information to the bibliography of this topic, and at the same time, it provides valuable information for managers, because if they have more information about how the variables are related and to what extent they do it, they will have more and better tools to be able to manage sports services more effectively and with less expenditure of resources, being able to plan more precisely the actions that they consider appropriate.
In sport context, many contributions are involved in the perception of quality and satisfaction in sport services, but in regards to brand perception, such studies are much less common. Virtually no work is aimed at brand awareness of sports services. In the book chapter the authors expose a case study that analyze the users perception of the image of the service and is related to some performance indicators such as quality of service, satisfaction and future intentions. Data analysis is performed using structural equations and measurement scales adapted to sports facilities. The results of this study show that quality is explained by congruence with a high percentage of variance (76.6%), the latter concept being the aspect with the greatest predictive weight. Furthermore, future intentions are explained by attitudes towards the brand and quality, the latter being the element with greater predictive power.
Over half of EU funding is channeled through the 5 European structural and investment funds (ESIF). The purpose of all these funds is to invest in job creation and a sustainable and healthy European economy and environment. Especially, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) aims to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union by correcting imbalances between its regions.
Likewise, accelerator programmes are recognised through other EU programmes, such as Horizon 2020. The SME instrument under H2020 programme has to boost fast company growth and market-creating innovation thanks to staged funding and ramped up business acceleration services.
The SME Instrument offers start-ups businesses access to a wide range of business acceleration services and facilitated access to risk finance, to facilitate the commercial exploitation of the innovation. True, it is one of the most demanding programme for start-ups and scale-ups.
With the view of facilitating the commercial exploitation of the innovation activities resulting from phase 1 or phase 2, the SME instrument (H2020 programme) proposes business acceleration services. These include support for further developing investment readiness, linking with private investors and customers through brokerage activities and events (including trade fairs), assistance in applying for further EU risk finance, and a range of other innovation support activities and services offered via the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN).
Currently, the EU provides a set of support to innovative start-ups and scale-ups through different schemes, but, the most comprehensive is the European Innovation Council (EIC).
Co-branding is regarded as a beneficial corporate branding strategy. Corporate crises can, however, result in one or both brands damaging customer-firm relationships. Research evidence in the area is sparse and shows that the non-culpable partner is negatively influenced by crises when perceived as being aware of the wrongdoing. Extending prior research, we investigate how brand equity of the non-culpable partner shapes consumers’ post-crisis attitudes. We also examine boundary conditions to the brand equity effect. Drawing on expectancy violation theory, we show that high-equity of the non-culpable partner mitigates the negative effects of accidental crises, whilst low-equity can mitigate preventable crises. In preventable crises, non-culpable partner brands enjoying high equity suffer from negative attitudes accruing from the culpable brand in the alliance. The results suggest that managers should use corporate co-branding with caution, carefully evaluating the partner brand’s equity and its effects when planning for and managing crisis situations.
The aim of this exploratory research was to investigate the strategies European banks pursue in branding their financial products. For this purpose, we drew upon both onomastics, a sub-discipline of linguistics, and branding, and, hence, bridged the gap between linguistics and marketing. In particular, we selected a corpus of account names in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Rumania, and Hungary for our qualitative analysis. The results reveal that in Germany, Austria, and France, parent brands (bank names) appear to be rarely used. In Italy some names seem to generate associations with slogans for fast-moving consumer goods. Whereas in Germany, Austria, Italy, and France, account names refer to different target groups, English elements appear to be employed to a lesser extent in France than in the other countries. Only German banks apply a co-branding strategy in cooperation with, especially, German sports clubs and teams. Generally, Rumanian and Hungarian account names show only few phonetic and graphic particularities. They seem to be rather descriptive and, hence, lack creative power. Our findings may help marketers in retail banking to create awareness of some linguistic features they may consider when branding their financial products.
Prior research has established the positive effect of green marketing on purchase intentions. Less well known is why. Two empirical studies were conducted to investigate trust as an important mediator explaining the relationship between green marketing and purchase intentions. In study one, we successfully replicate prior research, again finding higher purchase intentions for companies that engage in green marketing. Additionally, trust in the company was found to mediate this relationship. Study two then examines the underlying mechanisms of expertise and prosocial orientation on the relationship between green marketing and trust, and then serially to purchase intentions. Demographic boundary conditions of age and gender were also investigated. Despite previous research indicating that gender affects perceptions of sustainable marketing, gender was not found to influence trust through perceptions of expertise and prosocial orientation. Interestingly, consumer age was found to influence perceptions of the company's expertise but not prosocial orientation. Younger consumers, specifically those about 38 and younger, believe that companies using green marketing display more expertise compared to those that do not, ultimately increasing perceptions of trust in the company.
This study proposes that the interaction effect of brand personality fit and product category fit will influence perceived masstige under a co-branding context. When product category fit is high, low (vs. high) brand personality fit leads to greater perceived masstige. However, when product category fit is low, high (vs. low) brand personality fit leads to greater perceived masstige. Furthermore, the interaction effect of brand personality fit and product category fit on perceived masstige is mediated by processing fluency and perceived novelty. Specifically, when product category fit is low, high (vs. low) brand personality fit can elicit greater processing fluency, leading to higher perceived masstige. In contrast, when product category fit is high, low (vs. high) brand personality fit can stimulate perceived novelty, leading to higher perceived masstige. In addition, we examine how perceived masstige influences brand equity. Focusing on the masstige co-branding strategies between a mass brand and a luxury brand, this study aims to build a bridge between co-branding and masstige.
Purpose
The motivations behind co-branding alliances, the differences in performance between the paired brands and the emergence of “spillover effects” have been pillars of the marketing research agenda for almost three decades. We observe an extensive number of studies on co-branding alliances, combined with multiple theoretical perspectives and empirical approaches informing extant literature. The purpose of this paper is to summarize of the state of the art of this research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors offer a systematic literature review of 190 papers on co-branding alliances. The authors portray a picture of the theories informing co-branding research and build a conceptual framework that summarizes the concepts and variables used in this literature. Finally, 11 interviews with managers and consultants of European firms help to reveal potential problems in practice and needs that are not captured by previous studies.
Findings
The authors develop a map of theories used to investigate co-branding alliances and build a conceptual framework linking motivations, co-branding alliance implementation and outputs. Finally, the authors propose a structured research agenda.
Research limitations/implications
The main implication relies on the structured research agenda.
Practical implications
Practical implications include the identification of the variables and dimensions involved in a brand alliance to exploit the strengths and moderate the weaknesses of a brand.
Originality/value
This paper highlights how co-branding is embedded in different contexts and dimensions regarding both firms and consumers. The two maps presented in this study underscore the interdependence among such dimensions. The authors interview marketing experts to validate the conceptual framework and to help us extract the managerial implications that stem from it.
Destination marketers promote emerging heritage sites using advertisements that feature either one or more than one brand. However, it is unclear which type of advertisement is more effective. This research addresses this topic through three experimental studies. Study 1a and Study1b, respectively, demonstrate that, compared to single brand advertisements, joint brand advertisements with highly familiar national tourist brands exert a stronger favourable influence on tourists' behavioural intentions towards emerging heritage sites and advertising click through rate. Study 2 demonstrates that such an effect occurs via an increase in the emerging heritage site brand's credibility. Marketers could, therefore, resort to joint brand advertisements with familiar brands to effectively promote emerging heritage sites.
To seek more business opportunities, cross-market retailers pursue horizontal joint promotion (HJP) to promote their products together. It is important to determine the factors that make cross-market retailers pursue HJP and how HJP affects the retailers' optimal decisions. We address such issues in the context of a shopping mall in which two cross-market retailers pursue HJP with the possible involvement of the shopping mall. We develop game-theoretic models to study whether the shopping mall should provide consumers with coupons that they can obtain from the retailer in the source market and consume at the retailer in the target market. We find that when coupons are offered to consumers, the retailer in the source market has a higher price and will pay more for HJP, but has a smaller demand and a lower profit than the retailer in the target market. Furthermore, when the effect of the coupon is relatively large, both retailers prefer the coupon as they can have higher prices, demands, and profits, and their promotional strategies change with the denomination and effect of the coupon. Conversely, both retailers would reduce investments in HJP because the coupon may bring them lower profits.
While considerable research attention has been given to co‐branding (brand alliance), empirical evidence of the success drivers remains fragmented with inconclusive findings. This meta‐analysis aims to synthesize the existing research and provide a comprehensive and generalisable set of findings. It integrates data of 197 effect sizes from 37 independent studies reported in 27 articles. The findings reveal that the relationship between the partner brands has a significantly larger impact on the success of co‐branding than the individual brand characteristics, and brand image fit is a relatively more important driver than product category fit and brand equity. Moderator analysis indicates that the relative importance of the relationship between brands is generalisable to the type of industry, business and co‐branding strategy. This paper advances theoretical understanding in three ways: (a) it increases generalisability of existing studies by investigating the impact of theoretical, contextual, and method‐related moderators on the effect sizes, (b) it brings a consensus to the equivocal findings on the importance of success drivers and (c) it identifies the knowledge gaps, and presents a future research agenda. In so doing, the paper guides practitioners by highlighting which factors to be considered and prioritised when forming a brand alliance.
Purpose
The creation and development of candidate-politician brands, otherwise known as political co-brands, remains an under-researched area of study. This is supported by calls for more understanding on political co-brands and how they are positioned and managed by their creators. Framed by the concepts of internal brand identity and co-branding, this paper aims to investigate how political co-brand identity is constructed and managed over time, exploring alignment between the political co-brand and political corporate party brand.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretivist revelatory multi-case study approach, using in-depth interviews, was conducted with three political co-brands (candidates-politicians) from the UK Conservative Party. The three cases represented constituencies across the UK from the North, Midlands and South of the country. The in-depth elite interviews were conducted July 2015 to September 2015. Methodological triangulation was also adopted to assess the coherency of emerging themes with online and offline materials and documents. A two-stage thematic analytical approach was used to interpret the findings.
Findings
This multiple case study demonstrates how successful political co-brands create and develop identities tailored to their constituency, often distinct from the corporate political brand and developed several years before electoral success at the ballot box. In addition, this study reveals that political co-brands are dichotomous in terms of strategically managing a degree of alignment with the corporate political brand yet maintaining a degree of independence.
Research limitations/implications
This study builds on limited existing concepts such as co-branding and political brand identity as a means of critical application. Existing research on co-branding remains a “relatively limited” and complex area of study and generally focuses on fictitious brands. Political brand identity remains an under-researched area. This in turn supports the development and advancement of political branding as an area of study. This paper highlights the opportunities of using the strategic approach of co-branding to help conceptualise “candidates-politicians” as political brands’ which up until now, “candidate-politician brands” have been difficult to define unlike the extensive research on corporate political brands.
Practical implications
This study has implications for practice too. Organisations and different typologies of political brands will be able to use this political co-brand identity framework as a diagnostic mechanism to investigate their co-brands current identity, assess alignment and make strategic changes or reposition the envisaged identity if desired. Similarly, organisations can use this framework, key dimensions and factors as a blueprint to design and build new political brands at a corporate and/or local level.
Originality/value
This study has implications for brands beyond the world of politics. Brands can adopt the political co-brand identity framework developed in this study as a pragmatic tool to investigate internally created co-brand identity and explore alignment with the corporate party brand identity. In addition, this research adds to the limited research on non-fictitious co-brands and co-branding literature at large and addresses the calls for more research on brand identity in new settings.
Purpose
This study aims to examine the critical role of types of coopetition (upstream/downstream), market structure (concentrated/competitive) and innovation (low vs high degree of innovation) that can affect the way consumers perceive the resulting price (un)fairness of new offerings.
Design/methodology/approach
Three between-subjects experiments involving different participant populations and product categories were conducted to test the research hypotheses.
Findings
The valence of the effect of types of coopetition (upstream/downstream) on price fairness is conditional on the market structure and the degree of innovation associated with the new product offering. Downstream (as opposed to upstream) coopetition is much more detrimental to perceptions of price fairness in a concentrated market than in a competitive and fragmented market. However, within a competitive market, downstream coopetition may lead to greater price fairness perception than upstream coopetition when the new product offering is highly innovative.
Research limitations/implications
The current study uses lab experiments with fictitious scenarios and focuses on two moderating variables: market structure and innovation perceptions. Future research may use field experiments and explore additional moderating variables that may annihilate the negative effect of downstream coopetition on price fairness perception, especially in a concentrated market.
Practical implications
In concentrated markets, firms should opt for upstream rather than downstream coopetition to limit the negative effect the announcement of coopetition has on price fairness evaluation. However, within a competitive market, when the new product offering resulting from coopetition is associated with a high perceived degree of innovation, firms should opt for downstream rather than upstream coopetition because of its positive impact on price fairness evaluation.
Originality/value
To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate that new product development from coopetition has important implications for the perception of price fairness, leading to positive or negative effects depending on market structure and the degree of innovation of the new product offering. It then explores the conditions under which types of coopetition (upstream/downstream) might backfire.
Purpose
To analyze the market reception of multi-authored works of art through the lens of collaborative old master paintings (“formal/prestige collaboration”). This paper tests whether multi-authored attribution strategies (i.e. naming two artists as brand names) affect buyers' willingness to pay differently from single-authored works in the auction market.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study focuses on collaborative paintings by Flemish masters, based on a data set comprising 11,630 single-authored and collaborative paintings auctioned between 1946 and 2015. Hedonic regressions have been employed to test whether or not co-branded artworks are differently valued by buyers and how the reputation of each artist might influence valuation.
Findings
Despite the opportunity for buyers to purchase one artwork with two brand names, this study reveals that the average value of collaborative paintings is statistically lower than that of single-authored paintings. This is especially true when a reputed master was involved in the collaboration. The present findings suggest that the valuable characteristics of formal collaborations (i.e. double brand name, dual authorship and reputation, high-quality standards) are no longer perceived and valued as such by buyers, and that co-branding can affect the artist brand equity because of a contagion effect. We argue that integral authorship is more valued than partial authorship, suggesting that the myth of the artist as a lone genius is still well-anchored in purchasing habits.
Research limitations/implications
Prestige collaborations are a very particular form of early co-branding in the art world, with limited data available. Further research should consider larger samples to reiterate the analysis on other collaboration forms in order to challenge the current findings.
Practical implications
Researchers and living artists should be aware that brand building and co-branding are marketing strategies that may generate negative effects on prices in the art market. The perceived and market value of co-branded works are time-varying, and depends on both the context of reception of these works and the reputation of the artists at time t .
Originality/value
This market segment has never been considered in art market studies, although formal collaboration is one of the earliest documented forms of co-branding in the art world. This paper provides new empirical evidence from the auction market, based on buyers' willingness to pay, and it further highlights the reception of multi-authored art objects in Western art markets that particularly value individual creators.
Purpose
Many fashion brands employ growth strategies that involve strategically aligning with a retailer to offer exclusive co-brands that vary in duration and perceived fit. While growth and publicity are enticing, pursuing collaboration may change consumers' evaluation of the brand. Utilising commodity and categorisation theory, this research tests how a brand may successfully approach a co-brand with a retailer.
Design/methodology/approach
Three experimental studies manipulate and test the effect of co-brand duration (limited edition vs ongoing) (Study 1), the degree of brand-retailer fit (high vs low) (Study 2), and its combined effect (Study 3) on changes in consumers' brand evaluation.
Findings
Results reveal that consumers' evaluations of brands become more favourable when: (1) brand-retailer co-brand make products available on a limited edition (vs ongoing) basis (Study 1), (2) consumers perceive a high (vs low) degree of brand-retailer fit (Study 2) and (3) both conditions are true (Study 3).
Research limitations/implications
In light of commodity and categorisation theory, this study helps to understand the effectiveness of a brand-retailer co-branding strategy.
Practical implications
To increase brand evaluations, brands should engage in a limited edition strategy, rather than ongoing when collaborating with retailers. It is also important to select an appropriately fitting retailer for a strategic partnership when creating a co-brand.
Originality/value
While previous studies highlight the importance of perceived fit upon extension, perceived fit between brand and retailer co-brand had yet to be investigated. Additionally, this research investigates changes in brand evaluations to more accurately understand how co-branding strategies impact the brand.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically test how company size affects the use of Scotland’s place brand in product branding by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the book industry in Scotland.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a mixed-method approach to investigate place brand adoption for product branding by SMEs in the Scottish book industry through the analysis of Scotland’s place brand identifiers in a corpus of 208 online book blurbs.
Findings
Results from the analysis show that, amongst SMEs in the Scottish publishing industry, smaller companies are more likely to use Scotland place brand identifiers in product marketing.
Originality/value
This is the first study to analyze book blurbs from a marketing perspective and it is one of the few articles on product-place co-branding. Additionally, branding in SMEs is a relatively new and uncharted area of research to which this study contributes, and branding in book publishing is also a scarcely researched area, to which this study offers new, empirical data about the relationship between place brands and product brands.
Reference prices, which are extensively used in retail advertisements, have received considerable research attention over the last 15 years. The authors examine how reference prices in advertisements affect consumers' price beliefs and behavioral intentions in different contexts. A model of reference price effects is proposed and tested. The model facilitates explanation of anomalous findings in previous research.
Consumers use brand names and product features to predict the performance of products. Various learning models offer hypotheses about the source of these predictive associations. Spreading-activation models hypothesize that cues acquire predictive value as a consequence of being present during the acquisition of product performance information. Least mean squares connectionist models hypothesize that any one cue acquires predictive value only to the extent that it can predict differences in performance that are not already predicted by other available cues. Five studies in the context of portfolio-branding strategies provide evidence supporting a least mean squares connectionist model. As predicted by this model, results show that subbranding and ingredient-branding strategies can protect brands from dilution in some situations but can promote dilution in other situations.
The research presented in this article addresses the issue of the significance and relative importance of the determinants of extension success by simultaneously investigating ten success factors. The empirical analysis considers the direct relationships between success factors and extension success, the structural relationships among investigated factors, and moderating effects. The authors find that fit between the parent brand and an extension product is the most important driver of brand extension success, followed by marketing support, parent-brand conviction, retailer acceptance, and parent-brand experience. The authors also find several important structural relationships among the investigated success factors (e.g., marketing support → fit → retailer acceptance → extension success). Finally, the interaction terms of fit with the quality of the parent brand and with parent-brand conviction are statistically significant, albeit of relatively low importance.
The authors examine the growing and pervasive phenomenon of brand alliances as they affect consumers' brand attitudes. The results of the main study (n = 350) and two replication studies (n = 150, n = 210) together demonstrate that (1) consumer attitudes toward the brand alliance influence subsequent impressions of each partner's brand (i.e., "spillover" effects), (2) brand familiarity moderates the strength of relations between constructs in a manner consistent with information integration and attitude accessibility theories, and (3) each partner brand is not necessarily affected equally by its participation in a particular alliance. These results represent a first, necessary step in understanding why and how a brand could be affected by "the company it keeps" in its brand alliance relationships.
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of two different extension strategies, namely brand extension and co-branding, on consumer attitude toward an extension in the context of the arts. Design/methodology/approach – An experiment was conducted in which the type of extension strategy, as well as other variables identified as potentially having an impact on consumer attitudes, were manipulated. Findings – The results showed that, whatever extension strategy is chosen, the new product should be congruent with the arts organization's activities and should be of low complexity. If these conditions are met, a co-branding strategy appears to be preferable. Research limitations/implications – Because only two arts organizations were analyzed in this study, i.e. museums and symphonic orchestras, future studies should consider other domains of the arts. New products introduced as brand extensions should be simple and congruent with the business activities of the arts organization. If the product is not congruent with the organization's activities, then simple brand extension appears be a better strategy. Originality/value – This study has examined the extent to which marketing strategies that work for conventional goods and services may succeed in the case of artistic and cultural products. It brings valuable knowledge to managers of arts organizations and marketing researchers with respect to the impact of brand extension strategies in the arts.
Co-branding involves combining two or more well-known brands into a single product. Used properly, it is an effective way to leverage strong brands. In this paper, co-branding is defined and differentiated from other types of branding alliance. The literature on co-branding is reviewed and a framework proposed to help managers identify co-branding opportunities to enhance the success of their products. The advantages and shortcomings of each of the proposed strategies are also discussed.Journal of Brand Management (2003) 11, 35-47; doi:10.1057/palgrave.bm.2540146
Empirical studies in marketing research are usually single studies. This is problematic, as the majority of the replications conducted do not even partially much less fully confirm the results of the original studies. Against this background this paper presents two replications of an earlier co‐branding study. While the results of the replications confirm the basic model, some important differences between the original study and the replications can be shown. These will be discussed in this paper and possible explanations for the deviant outcomes will be given.
Empirical research concerning the effects of country of origin (COO) on consumers’ evaluative reactions to products has produced
mixed and sometimes inconsistent results. Potential explanations for this situation include differences in the countries considered,
populations sampled, products investigated, availability of product cues other than COO, the format in which the product cues
were presented to the subjects, and the types of evaluative reactions considered. The authors present the results of three
experiments designed to investigate the impact of three presentation formats (i.e., single cue, explicit multiple cues, and
implicit multiple cues) on COO effects for four evaluative reactions (i.e., perceived quality, product evaluations other than
quality, affect, and purchase intentions). COO effects were strongest for the single-cue format and weakest for the implicit
multiple-cues condition. Perception of product quality was most strongly affected by COO, followed by product evaluations
other than quality; COO had its smallest effect on purchase intention. Implications of these results and future research directions
are discussed.
This paper develops and tests a conceptual model of the effects of store name, brand names and price discounts on consumers' evaluations (store image, brand quality perceptions, internal reference prices, and value perceptions) and purchase intentions. The moderating effects of consumer knowledge and prior ownership on the proposed relationships in the model are also explored. A store's perceived image is influenced by the store name and the quality of merchandise it carries. Results also indicate that internal reference price is influenced by price discounts, brand name, and a brand's perceived quality. The influence of price discounts on a brand's perceived quality was minimal. Price discounts, internal reference price, and brand's perceived quality exerted significant influence on perceived value. Perceived value and store image, in turn, positively influenced purchased intentions. High knowledge respondents are more influenced by brand name, while low knowledge respondents are more influenced by price discounts. Low knowledge consumers are also swayed by store name and brand name.
In the context of competitive markets with asymmetric information, the authors develop a model of firms' branding decisions. In equilibrium, both branded and unbranded products exist, and the authors characterize price-quality relationships between them. In contrast to other advertising models, they predict that branded products will have lower average (price-adjusted) quality than unbranded products. This lower average is counterbalanced by lower variance in product quality, giving branding a risk-reducing rather than a quality-guaranteeing functions. The authors describe industries in which these relationships are likely to be stronger and test the predictions using Consumer Reports data on quality and price. Copyright 1992 by University of Chicago Press.
Four studies show that consumers have not one but two distinct learning processes that allow them to use brand names and other product features to predict consumption benefits. The first learning process is a relatively unfocused process in which all stimulus elements get cross-referenced for later retrieval. This process is backward looking and consistent with human associative memory (HAM) models. The second learning process requires that a benefit be the focus of prediction during learning. It assumes feature-benefit associations change only to the extent that the expected performance of the product does not match the experienced performance of the product. This process is forward looking and consistent with adaptive network models. The importance of this two-process theory is most apparent when a product has multiple features. During HAM learning, each feature-benefit association will develop independently. During adaptive learning, features will compete to predict benefits and, thus, feature-benefit associations will develop interdependently. We find adaptive learning of feature-benefit associations when consumers are motivated to learn to predict a benefit (e.g., because it is perceived to have hedonic relevance) but find HAM learning when consumers attend to an associate of lesser motivational significance. Copyright 2001 by the University of Chicago.
A series of experiments illustrates a learning process that enhances brand equity at the expense of quality-determining attributes. When the relationship between brand name and product quality is learned prior to the relationship between product attributes and quality, inhibition of the latter may occur. The phenomenon is shown to be robust, but its influence appears sensitive to contextual variations in the learning environment. Tests of process are inconsistent with attentional explanations and popular models of causal reasoning, but they are supportive of associative learning models that portray learners as inherently forward looking. Copyright 2000 by the University of Chicago.
Several papers have been published demonstrating the positive effects a single, reputable ally has on evaluations of a focal brand. Interestingly, little research has been published examining the effects of multiple brand allies. We examine the effect of an alliance with two, one, or zero well-known brand allies on evaluations of a previously unknown focal brand. The presence of a single brand ally significantly increased perceived quality and hedonic and utilitarian attitudes. While multiple alliances improved focal brand evaluations relative to the no ally condition, the second ally did not increase evaluations relative to the single ally condition.
In this study, sex role portrayals were manipulated in an advertisement created for the study. The roles used were professional and housewife. One hundred one respondents chosen from several southwest towns were exposed to either the professional version of the ad or the housewife version, and were asked to evaluate the ad on a semantic differential scale. One of the items in the scale was an evaluation of the role of the individual in the ad, and was used in a manipulation check. The result of the ad evaluations indicated significantly higher scores for the professional version of the ad than for the housewife version.
The researchers investigated the long-term effects of classically conditioned attitudes toward a brand, in two experiments, subjects were exposed to classical conditioning procedures in which favorable images were paired with a fictitious brand of mouthwash. Study 1, a within-subjects design, examined attitudes of a single subject pool immediately after exposure, after a one-week delay, and after a three-week, delay. In study 2, the same methods and procedures were used to condition favorable responses to the test brand, but a between-subjects design was used to control for possible measurement effects. Measurements were taken immediately after exposure to conditioning trials for one group of subjects and three weeks after exposure to the trials for a second group. Results from both studies support the hypothesis that attitudes formulated through classical conditioning are enduring.
In this article, the authors examine the circumstances in which brand names convey information about unobservable quality. They argue that a brand name can convey unobservable quality credibly when false claims will result in intolerable economic losses, These losses can occur for two reasons: (1) losses of reputation or sunk investments and (2) losses of future profits that occur whether or not the brand has a reputation. The authors test this assertion in the context of the emerging practice of brand alliances. Results from several studies are supportive of the premise and suggest that, when evaluating a product that has an important unobservable attribute, consumers' quality perceptions are enhanced when a brand is allied with a second brand that is perceived to be vulnerable to consumer sanctions. The authors discuss the theoretical and substantive implications for the area of brand management.
The author presents a conceptual model of brand equity from the perspective of the individual consumer. Customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. A brand is said to have positive (negative) customer-based brand equity when consumers react more (less) favorably to an element of the marketing mix for the brand than they do to the same marketing mix element when it is attributed to a fictitiously named or unnamed version of the product or service. Brand knowledge is conceptualized according to an associative network memory model in terms of two components, brand awareness and brand image (i. e., a set of brand associations). Customer-based brand equity occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favorable, strong, and unique brand associations in memory. Issues in building, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity are discussed, as well as areas for future research.
In this article, the authors investigate the effectiveness of advertising alliances (in which two brands from different product categories are featured together in an advertisement) for introducing new brands. The authors identify degree of complementarity between the featured products, type of differentiation strategy (common versus unique advertised attributes), and type of ad processing strategy (top-down or bottom-up) as important factors in determining ad effectiveness. The conceptualization captures the effects of these factors on brand awareness, brand accessibility, brand beliefs, belief accessibility, and brand attitudes. The theory was tested in an experiment using print advertisements to manipulate the three factors in conditions of high consumer involvement. The results show an interesting pattern of interactions among the factors, which has important implications for managers of new and established brands.
The authors report two studies investigating the effectiveness of a composite brand in a brand extension context. In composite brand extension, a combination of two existing brand names in different positions as header and modifier is used as the brand name for a new product (e.g., Slim-Fast chocolate cakemix by Godiva). The results of both studies reveal that by combining two brands with complementary attribute levels, a composite brand extension appears to have a better attribute profile than a direct extension of the header brand (Study 1) and has a better attribute profile when it consists of two complementary brands than when it consists of two highly favorable but not complementary brands (Study 2). The improved attribute profile seems to enhance a composite's effectiveness in influencing consumer choice and preference (Study 2). In addition, the positions of the constituent brand names in the composite brand name are found to be important in the formation of the composite's attribute profile and its feedback effects on the constituent brands. A composite brand extension has different attribute profiles and feedback effects, depending on the positions of the constituent brand names.
A considerable amount of social science research suggests an individual's initial perception of and reaction to another individual are affected by the physical attractiveness of the other person. The authors attempt to assess whether this general finding applies to people's perceptions of advertisements. Specifically, they assess the impact of attractiveness of male and female models on subjects' evaluations of ads, and seek to determine whether the reactions depend on the sex of the ad reader or on the type of product being advertised.
The researchers investigated the long-term effects of classically conditioned attitudes toward a brand. In two experiments, subjects were exposed to classical conditioning procedures in which favorable images were paired with a fictitious brand of mouthwash. Study 1, a within-subjects design, examined attitudes of a single subject pool immediately after exposure, after a one-week delay, and after a three-week delay. In study 2, the same methods and procedures were used to condition favorable responses to the test brand, but a between-subjects design was used to control for possible measurement effects. Measurements were taken immediately after exposure to conditioning trials for one group of subjects and three weeks after exposure to the trials for a second group. Results from both studies support the hypothesis that attitudes formulated through classical conditioning are enduring.
The issue of brand equity has emerged as one of the most critical areas for marketing management in the 1990s. Despite strong interest in the subject, however, there is little empirical evidence of how brand value is created and what its precise effects are. This study explores some of the consequences of brand equity. In particular, the authors examine the effect of brand equity on consumer preferences and purchase intentions. For comparative purposes, two sets of brands are tested, one from a service category characterized by fairly high financial and functional risk (hotels), and one from a generally lower risk product category (household cleansers). Each set includes two brands that are objectively similar (based on Consumer Reports ratings), but they have invested markedly different levels of advertising spending over the past decade. Across both categories, the brand with the higher advertising budget yielded substantially higher levels of brand equity. In turn, the brand with the higher equity in each category generated significantly greater preferences and purchase intentions.
Two studies were conducted to obtain insights on how consumers form attitudes toward brand extensions, (i. e., use of an established brand name to enter a new product category). In one study, reactions to 20 brand extension concepts involving six well-known brand names were examined. Attitude toward the extension was higher when (1) there was both a perception of "fit" between the two product classes along one of three dimensions and a perception of high quality for the original brand or (2) the extension was not regarded as too easy to make. A second study examined the effectiveness of different positioning strategies for extensions. The experimental findings show that potentially negative associations can be neutralized more effectively by elaborating on the attributes of the brand extension than by reminding consumers of the positive associations with the original brand.
A decision of increasing importance is how ingredient attributes that make up a product should be labeled or branded, if at all. The authors conduct a laboratory experiment to consider how ingredient branding affects consumer acceptance of a novel line extension (or one that has not been introduced before) as well as the ability of the brand to leverage that ingredient to introduce future category extensions. The authors study two particular types of novel line extensions or brand expansions: (1) slot-filler expansions, in which the level of one existing product attribute changes (e.g., a scent in Tide detergent that is new to the laundry detergent category) and (2) new attribute expansions, in which an entirely new attribute or characteristic is added to the product (e.g., cough relief liquid added to Life Savers candy). The authors examine two types of ingredient branding strategies by branding the target attribute ingredient for the brand expansion with either a new name as a self-branded ingredient (e.g., Tide with its own EverFresh scented bath soap) or an established, well-respected name as a cobranded ingredient (e.g., Tide with Irish Spring scented bath soap). The results indicate that with slot-filler expansions, a cobranded ingredient facilitates initial expansion acceptance, but a self-branded ingredient leads to more favorable subsequent category extension evaluations. With more dissimilar new attribute expansions, however, a cobranded ingredient leads to more favorable evaluations of both the initial expansion and the subsequent category extension. The authors offer interpretation, implications, and limitations of the findings, as well as directions for further research.
A model of context effects in product evaluations is tested in which brand alliances play a key role. This three-part study examined the extent to which evaluations of two restaurants are assimilated by virtue of their dual-branding strategic linkage. Key factors in the assimilation process are thought to be the ambiguity of the target restaurant's description and the degree of linkage between the target and the context as operationally defined by varying the shared features of the dual brands. Results support a model in which inferences about the qualities of an incompletely described target product arise from the assumed similarity between target and context, which is directly related to the degree of linkage between the two brands. These inferences include both specific attribute values and global evaluations of quality.
During the last decade branding has developed to be one of the main focus areas in consumer marketing. In the industrial marketing area there has only been limited attention to this phenomenon. In this paper we focus on how co-branding can be used on industrial markets to increase value. Through an empirical study of professional purchasers' attitudes towards co-branding activities between two companies, we explore the potential of this strategy.
Assesses how branded ingredients affect consumer product quality perceptions, confidence in product quality perceptions, product evaluations, taste perceptions, purchase likelihoods, and reservation prices of host brands of varying quality. In two experiments, we find that branded ingredients consistently and positively affected moderate-quality host brands, but only occasionally positively affected higher-quality host brands. Suggests that managers of both moderate and higher-quality host brands consider implementing branded ingredient strategies, albeit for different reasons. While moderate-quality host brands can improve their competitive position by using branded ingredients, higher-quality host brands generally do not. However, higher-quality host brands may benefit most by securing the most desirable branded ingredients for their own use, thereby blocking moderate-quality host brands from using a branded ingredient strategy to improve their competitive position.
While it may appear to be a good idea on the surface, restaurant cobranding raises potential problems in three areas. First, cobranding may cannibalize both sales and image of one brand with the addition of another brand in the same restaurant space. Second, cobranding may cause operational confusion, because managers and employees will have to learn two different operating systems. Third, cobranding may increase costs because of the need to train employees in two systems. As an additional point, cobranding may also confuse consumers with regard to what a restaurant is offering.
Co-branding is an increasingly popular technique marketers use in attempting to transfer the positive associations of the partner (constituent) brands to a newly formed co-brand (composite brand). This research examines the effects of co-branding on the brand equity of both the co-branded product and the constituent brands that comprise it, both before and after product trial. It appears that co-branding is a win/win strategy for both co-branding partners regardless of whether the original brands are perceived by consumers as having high or low brand equity. Although low equity brands may benefit most from co-branding, high equity brands are not denigrated even when paired with a low equity partner. Further, positive product trial seems to enhance consumers’ evaluations of co-branded products, particularly those with a low equity constituent brand. Co-branding strategies may be effective in exploiting a product performance advantage or in introducing a new product with an unfamiliar brand name.
Purpose
– Understanding brand associations and their role in the formation of attitude towards brands is necessary for managers to understand fully the dynamics of their brands and how consumers evaluate and make brand choices. This research paper aims to explore the role of brand associations in the formation of an attitude towards a brand alliance.
Design/methodology/approach
– A series of hypothetical alliances using real brands were presented to undergraduate students. Data were gathered from a series of open‐ended free associations for the brands alone and in their alliances, and structured questions regarding quality and likelihood of purchase for the alliance attitude rating.
Findings
– The study identified that brand associations, which are positive on an individual basis, can change when transferred to a new product category with a brand partner. Alliances with poor overall attitudes were often linked to associations of attributes of the original product class, whereas alliances with strong attitudes were linked to favourable associations related to the fit between the alliance partners.
Originality/value
– The value of this study is that it has identified that consumers can become “locked in” to brand‐specific associations that may be hard to shift in a brand leverage strategy. Therefore, practitioners should factor into their decisions about whether or not to form a brand alliance not only concrete measures, but also the abstract nature of brand associations. This study focused on consumer brands and hypothetical alliances and used students as a sample. Different findings may therefore be found using non‐student samples, services brand or business‐to‐business brands.
There is growing interest in the trend towards co-branding alliances between non-profit and commercial entities,which are undertaken by these organisations to transfer associations and affect between each brand partner. Certainly, it makes sense that commercial entities want to gain more from their brands and that non-profits want secured funding, however, in the same way that the joining of two brands can be beneficial, it can also bring with it major risks when the brand alliance is not well received and evaluations of the alliance are not favourable.This research supports the notion that both commercial entities and non-profit organisations can benefit from a branding alliance, however, an understanding of how these brand alliances are evaluated is important. This research investigates evaluations of brand alliances and the resulting spillover effects for original brand partners that result from brand alliances.This research provides empirical support relating to reactions to brand alliances between a non-profit organisation and a commercial business in terms of how original brand attitudes, familiarity of original brands and perceived brand fit impact on evaluations. While collaboration is important and has potential benefits for each partner—they rest on partner selection and fit between alliance partners. Managerial implications and future research directions are also provided. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This research examines brand alliances, a specific marketing strategy designed to transfer the positive brand equity of two or more partner brands to the newly created joint brand. The study explores how customer-based brand equity (that is, brand equity as seen from the customer's perspective) of partner brands affects consumer evaluations of an alliance brand; how the brand equity of one partner brand affects the other; how customer-based brand equity of the partner brands affects consumers' evaluations of the search, experience, and credence attribute performance of the alliance brand; and how product trial influences such evaluations. Results suggest that merely the act of pairing with another brand elevates consumers' evaluations of the partner brands' customer-based brand equity, and high-equity partners enhance pretrial evaluation of experience and credence attributes that are relevant to the high-equity partner. As hypothesized, product trial moderates the equity value of the alliance partner for experience attributes, and brand equity of the partner brands influences consumer perceptions of the alliance brand's equity. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Describes search of associative memory (SAM), a general theory of retrieval from long-term memory that combines features of associative network models and random search models. It posits cue-dependent probabilistic sampling and recovery from an associative network, but the network is specified as a retrieval structure rather than a storage structure. A quantitative computer simulation of SAM was developed and applied to the part-list cuing paradigm. When free recall of a list of words was cued by a random subset of words from that list, the probability of recalling one of the remaining words was less than if no cues were provided at all. SAM predicted this effect in all its variations by making extensive use of interword associations in retrieval, a process that previous theorizing has dismissed. (55 ref)
In this study, sex role portrayals were manipulated in an advertisement created for the study. The roles used were professional
and housewife. One hundred one respondents chosen from several southwest towns were exposed to either the professional version
of the ad or the housewife version, and were asked to evaluate the ad on a semantic differential scale. One of the items in
the scale was an evaluation of the role of the individual in the ad, and was used in a manipulation check. The result of the
ad evaluations indicated significantly higher scores for the professional version of the ad than for the housewife version.
The apparent lack of agreement between Aaker and Keller's original study (Consumer Evaluations of Brand Extensions, Journal of Marketing 54, 27–40, 1990) and Sunde and Brodie's (Consumer Evaluations of Brand Extensions: Further Empirical Evidence, International Journal of Research in Marketing 10, 47–53, 1993) replication of how consumers form attitudes towards brand extensions indicates that further empirical evidence is required to investigate the scope of the propositions. Responding to these concerns, we not only provide an additional data set but also undertake new analyses at the brand level on both it and Sunde and Brodie's (1993) data set, in order to extend our understanding of the area. Consumers' attitudes toward brand extensions would appear to be driven primarily by the perceived quality of the parent brand and the perceived fit between the two product categories and moderated by interaction terms of quality and fit. Moreover, analysing the results at the individual brand extension level provides an opportunity to investigate the generalisability of the propositions to other extensions. Whilst the main effects model appears to be robust across brand extensions, only weak support is found for the full effects model.
We examined the effects of knowledge, motivation, and the type of message on ad processing and on product judgments. The data suggest that, regardless of subjects' prior knowledge, they could be motivated to process message information in detail. However, experts and novices differed in the types of information that prompted detailed message processing. Experts are more likely to process a message in detail when given only attribute information, while novices are more likely to do so when given benefit (or benefit and attribute) information. Experts and novices also differed in how they processed messages; experts' detailed message processing was evaluative, while novices' was more literal. Copyright 1990 by the University of Chicago.
This chapter discusses job market signaling. The term market signaling is not exactly a part of the well-defined, technical vocabulary of the economist. The chapter presents a model in which signaling is implicitly defined and explains its usefulness. In most job markets, the employer is not sure of the productive capabilities of an individual at the time he hires him. The fact that it takes time to learn an individual's productive capabilities means that hiring is an investment decision. On the basis of previous experience in the market, the employer has conditional probability assessments over productive capacity with various combinations of signals and indices. This chapter presents an introduction to Spence's more extensive analysis of market signaling.
Diff�rents travaux sur la Responsabilit� Sociale des Entreprises (RSE) montrent que les consommateurs per�oivent plus favorablement les entreprises agissant de mani�re responsable, mais n'�tudient pas sp�cifiquement les effets de la communication soci�tale et de ses caract�ristiques sur le capital-marque. Dans cette recherche, des hypoth�ses sont formul�es � partir du cadre conceptuel du capital-marque propos� par Keller (1993) et test�es exp�rimentalement. Les r�sultats montrent que la communication soci�tale renforce le capital-marque, et que trois autres facteurs interviennent : la sensibilit� soci�tale des consommateurs, la congruence entre l'entreprise et la cause d�fendue, et l'interaction entre la cr�dibilit� de l'information soci�tale et le scepticisme du consommateur.
This research investigates the effects of bundling on consumers' reservation prices for the bundle and its components including a new product (i.e., the primary product) and a tie-in product. Based on a quasi-experimental procedure (n = 180) involving mixed-product bundles of personal care products, the study examines the effect of the product combination, the form of the bundle (whether a within- or between-brand bundle), and attitudes toward the brand(s) as important determinants of consumers' evaluation of the bundle itself. The results show that prior attitudes toward the component brands significantly affect the evaluation of the bundle, which, in turn, mediates the influence of these prior attitudes on consumer reservation prices for the bundle itself and, subsequently, for both the new product and the tie-in individually.
Co-branding is an important strategy for the transition of brands. For multinational companies with global brands, it raises the chances of success in local markets. For local firms with strong brands, it secures their future through foreign investment and access to technology while maintaining consumer franchise and loyalty. In this review of co-branding and its relationship to consumer choice behavior, two case studies in the food industry lead to a set of guidelines for managers who want to use a co-branding strategy in brand transitions.
New product introduction-successful innovation/failure: Fragile boundary
- ACNielsen
ACNielsen (1999). New product introduction-successful innovation/failure: Fragile
boundary. New York, AC Nielsen BASES and Ernst & Young Global Client Consulting.
Neo-Pavlovian conditioning and its implications for consumer theory and research. Handbook of consumer behavior
- T A Shimp
Shimp, T. A. (1991). Neo-Pavlovian conditioning and its implications for consumer
theory and research. Handbook of consumer behavior. New York: Prentice Hall.
Brand equity, brand preference, and purchase intent An experimental investigation of the use of brand extension and co-branding strategies in the arts
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- C J Walgren
- C A Ruble
- N Donthu
Cobb-Walgren, C. J., Ruble, C. A., & Donthu, N. (1995). Brand equity, brand preference, and purchase intent. Journal of Advertising, 24(3), 25−40. d'Astous, A., Colbert, F., & Fournier, M. (2007). An experimental investigation of the use of brand extension and co-branding strategies in the arts. Journal of Services Marketing, 21(4), 231−240