New insights in co-branding strategy
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This thesis focuses on a specific category of co-branded products resulting from the \nalliance of high-tech products and luxury brands – we refer to them as “High-tech \nLuxury Co-branded Products” (HLCPs)” – whose presence in the market has increased \nin the last years. HLCPs represent an interesting case to study because they are \ncharacterized by both functional attributes (in which cognitive aspects are predominant) \nand symbolic attributes (in which affective aspects are mostly important). This fact \nrepresents a challenging issue which influences consumers’ perceptions and attitudes. In a context of rapid technological progress, consumers find it difficult to assess and compare alternative offerings of high-tech products; therefore, they tend to select the products with a trusted brand name. The association of high-tech products with luxury brands may therefore play a key role in this case. Furthermore, most studies consider consumers’ attitudes as a whole without accounting for attitudinal components and their drivers separately. In this thesis we take an alternative direction, by decomposing attitude into its main components and by applying the ABC (Affect, Behavior and Cognition) model of attitudes to explore consumers’ preferences. Decomposing attitude into different components provides us with clearer information about customers’ evaluation criteria for co-branded products. The ABC model of attitudes considers affect and cognition as predictors of a behavioral intention. In turn, through applying the ABC model of attitudes, this dissertation intends \nto identify and empirically examine how the components of attitude interact with each \nother as well as to explore which components lead to a success in the co-branding \ncontext. One of the major challenges related to co-branded products is that only a “good” fit stimulates a desirable attitude and association, and, therefore, influences consumers’ behavioral intentions (Simonin and Ruth, 1998; Helmig et al., 2007). Generally speaking, high-tech products and luxury goods have contrasting features. Luxury is exclusive and costly, but high-tech products are functional and useful. Thus, do \nconsumers modify their attitudes when faced with a high-tech product with additional \nluxury attribute? Yet no matter how well luxury goods and electronic products fit with \neach other, its effect to buy HLCPs still remains unanswered. Thus, the findings from \nthis dissertation would help marketers toward better decision-makings on introduction \nand positioning of co-branded products. The first study examines consumers’ attitudes toward HLCPs. We apply the ABC model of attitudes that uses affective responses and cognitive responses to predict consumers’ recommendation to buy HLCPs. We used the path analysis of structural equation modeling (SEM) to perform multi-group analysis to test our empirical model. The findings reveal that the empirical model is consistent and consumers use affective and cognitive responses to consider these co-branded products. They also pay more attention on the perception of product fit than brand fit. Lastly, our results show that luxurious attributes have stronger impact on consumers’ recommendation to buy HLCPs than hi-tech attributes. The second study explores how cultural differences influence consumers’ recommendation to buy HLCPs. The results show that intention to recommend HLPCs is mainly influenced by the affective component of attitude for consumers from Western cultures (e.g., Spanish consumers), while it is mainly influenced by the cognitive component of attitude for consumers from Eastern cultures (e.g., Taiwanese consumers). In addition, Western consumers place more importance on product fit while Eastern consumers emphasize the significance of brand fit. Finally, Taiwanese consumers favor high-technology attributes of co-branded products while Spanish consumers pay more attention to their luxurious attributes. \nThe third papers examines gender effects on consumer attitude towards HLCPs. \nBased on the ABC (affect, behavior and cognition) model of attitudes, this study \nexplores how gender moderates the relationship between each component of consumers’ attitude and key antecedents. The empirical results show that conditional on the high acceptance of high-tech products, the impact of male consumers’ attitude on recommendation to buy HLCPs is higher than for female consumers. Furthermore, as far as attitudes of male consumers are concerned, consumers’ recommendation to buy is higher the higher the acceptance of high-tech products and the level of product fit. \nBy contrast, gender differences do not seem to play any role in influencing consumers’ \naffective and cognitive responses.
Author: Han-Chiang Ho
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2610820270