Co-Branding: Fit Factors Between Partner Brands

Book excerpt: Firms are continuously looking for new opportunities to exploit and leverage their existing brands to achieve business growth. In the past, companies have leveraged their ‘most important asset’ (brands) through brand and line extensions. Nowadays, the most recent trend for capitalizing on brands is called ‘Co-Branding’ in which two or more brands are presented jointly to the consumer, forming a new product or service offering. This new branding strategy promises many benefits, especially for companies operating internationally with strong global brands. This study 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. But why are some brands perceived as fitting together by consumers and others are not? To answer this question, this study investigates which factors (e.g. similar price level, target group, product category) lead to a perceived fit between partner brands by consumers.