Co-branding is often employed to jumpstart brand associations for a new brand. Even with positively-regarded established brands, however, the effects on the new brand are not always positive, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.
“This research demonstrates that partnering with established brands can damage the evaluation of the less-known brand even when there is no loss of control, no product failure, and the attitude toward the established brand is overwhelmingly positive. Key to this potential effect is the inability of the new or less-known brand to establish strong association with the outcome when the co-branding relationship involves a very prominent brand. As a result, generalizations about the less known brand become narrow when one encounters this brand by itself.”
The authors find that this effect reverses itself when there is even a brief delay before presenting outcome information. This suggests that marketers can reveal a co-branding arrangement and the outcome in a single spot, as long as the outcome information is given at the end of the ad.
Read the abstract.
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