Como é que o género da marca influencia a avaliação de uma estratégia de co-branding?

Abstract

A co-branding strategy is a brand alliance between two independent brands that join to develop and launch a completely new product, which is labeled and identified simultaneously by both brands, with the purpose of strengthening their competitiveness and offering more quality to their clients. This dissertation aims to understand how brand gender influences the evaluation of a co-branding strategy, particularly when the brands extend to the opposite gender. Previews studies confirm that consumers tend to transfer the perceptions that they already have about the brands involved in the co-branding to the evaluation of the co-branded product. Furthermore, research showed that consumers tend to consider the brands as extensions of themselves, and thus express their masculinity/femininity trough the selection and consumption of certain brands. In order to investigate these issues, an empirical study was developed. An exploratory study was carried out in order to identify, amongst a set of automobile and fashion and accessories brands, and also as the most familiar. Considering the results, Mini, Porsche, Hugo Boss and Chanel were considered for the main study. Next, we developed the scenarios: two co-branding scenarios, one involving Mini and Hugo Boss (targeting the male segment) and another involving Porsche and Chanel (targeting the female segment); and two brand extension scenarios, one for Mini (targeting the male segment) and another for Porsche (targeting the female segment). The questionnaires of the main study were handed to 435 individuals. In order to answer the research questions, we used a descriptive analysis and Spearman correlation tests. The main results confirm that the evaluations of the new product resulting from a cross gender brand extension. Therefore, brands that want to target the opposite gender, should consider developing a co-branding strategy with a partner that has a good brand gender fit with this target.

Date of Award	25 Jun 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Joana Machado (Supervisor)