Attitude Transfer Model in Fashion Co-marketing Alliance: Controlling Product Tangibility/Intangibility

Abstract

By developing attitude transfer model, this study examined the co-marketing alliance effect between fashion and other industries (i.e., service and product brands) based upon the information integration theory. In addition, it examined the product tangibility/intangibility effects of partner brands by controlling stimuli: two alliance cases of fashion and service brands and two alliance cases of fashion and product brands. A total of 1,037 Korean women aged 20 to 39 were surveyed to compare the prior- and post- attitudes toward fashion/partner brands under four fictitious co-marketing alliance cases. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multi-group CFA, structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, and multi-group SEM analysis were conducted to test the hypotheses. The results demonstrated that the prior-attitude toward fashion brand partially affected the alliance attitude, and the co-marketing alliance was affected by prior-attitudes partner brands. The result of multi-group SEM analysis supported the significant differences between service and product brands as alliance partners, which might refer to the effect of product tangibility, existing in brand alliance contexts. The alliance evaluation affected the subsequent evaluations on each participating brands. This study empirically provides the conceptual structure of how consumer attitudes toward the participating brands interact with the attitudes toward alliance and offer practical insights. Specifically, upon employing the manipulated co-marketing alliances cases, this study demonstrates the partnering effect according to product tangibility of partner brands.