Abstract

The study aims to examine customers’ emotional reaction to brand collaboration, taking into consideration the possible combination of different brand equities using three experiments. Mobile phone is selected as the hypothetical product. Samsung is selected as the brand with the highest awareness in the mobile manufacture category whereas Burberry is selected as the brand with the highest awareness in the fashion category. Meanwhile, HTC and Bottega Veneta have the lowest brand awareness in the mobile and fashion category respectively. Four companies were selected to launch a hypothetical collaboration product. Analyzing the experiment samples’ data from china mobile phone market, the study findings revealed that consumer’s image congruence level (brand attitude/ brand relationship) of a product having two high brand awareness (High-High) is significantly greater than consumer’s image congruence for the same product having two different brand awareness (High-Low or Low-High). Consumer’s image congruence level (brand attitude/ brand relationship) for a product with two high brand awareness (High-High) is significantly greater than consumer’s image congruence for the same product with two low brand awareness (Low-Low) brands. A psychological framework is proposed in order to give marketers a new analytical tool in understanding and implementing effective brand collaboration.

Key words: Brand collaboration, brand awareness, image congruence, brand attitude.