GRIN Verlag Co-Branding: Fit Factors between Partner Brands

Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,0, Copenhagen Business School, language: English, abstract: This thesis is about the perception of "fit" between two partner brands in a co-branding venture. Previous studies have already identified that a perceived fit between partner brands leads to a positive evaluation of the co-branded offering by consumers. Despite the great importance of fit between brands, it has not been investigated yet which factors (e.g. similar price level, target group, product category) lead to a perceived fit between partner brands by consumers. For closing this research gap, a theoretical framework is developed in order to identify potential "fit factors" that have an influence on the perceived fit. Based on the categorization theory and different brand association classifications the following potential fit factors between two brands are identified: price fit, user fit, usage fit, quality fit, brand personality fit, and category fit. To find out if these fit factors have an impact on the perceived overall (global) fit of two partner brands, an empirical study of 9 real co-brands is conducted. 180 students are asked in an online questionnaire to state their perception of the 9 co-brands, regarding the different fit factors. Findings of the empirical study show that similarities in the price level (price fit), users (user fit), usage situation (usage fit), quality (quality fit) and brand personality (brand personality fit) seem to have a positive relationship to the overall (global) fit of two partner brands, whereas a category fit has no clear relationship to the global fit of two brands. On the one hand, these findings help brand managers to select the right partner brand. On the other hand, it delivers first indications for academics why consumers perceive some co-brands as fitting together and others not. The findings of this research, as well as the develo