Negative spill over effects in brand alliance crises

Abstract

Brand alliances, or partnerships between established brands, is a viable branding strategy. Yet, it is an inherently risky strategy, especially when one of the brand partners faces a crisis. A direct fallout of brand alliance crisis concerns consumer attitude spill over. Despite the surge in brand alliance research and industry interest, the literature on the psychological mechanisms and outcomes of spill over effects remains sparse. Underpinned by the Balance theory from social psychology, this research examines the impact of crises on consumers’ evaluations of corporate brand alliances. Employing an experimental design across three crisis contexts – preventable, accidental and victim, the research shows that crises in brand alliances negatively impact consumers’ evaluations of the culpable brand which spills over to the co-branded product. The non-culpable partner, however, is not found to be negatively affected. The results also show that post-crisis attitudes can be enhanced if consumers are exposed to recovery information that diminishes the culpable brand’s role in the crisis. The research provides novel contributions to knowledge and offers managerial guidelines on effective post-crisis public relations communication.