Investigating the effects of consumer characteristics with respect to brand knowledge and product involvement on brand alliance evaluation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to take the neglected influencing factors in brand alliance research into account based on consumer characteristics theory and discuss the influencing factors' interactive effects on brand alliance. Design/methodology/approach Based on the theory of consumer characteristics and the S&R model of brand alliance, an experimental design was conducted to examine the relationship among the various variables and moderators, which can test the changes of the dependent variables by controlling and manipulating one or more single variables. The sample includes 400 college students. Findings The results demonstrate that brand knowledge positively moderates the relationship between brand equity and consumer brand alliance, but not significantly affect the relationship between alliance evaluation and joint fit; in contrast, product involvement individually plays a positive moderating role on the relationship between joint fit, brand equity and consumer brand alliance evaluation. Originality/value Two consumer characteristic, brand knowledge and product involvement moderate the relationship between brand equity, joint fit and consumer brand alliance evaluation. Several empirical studies on brand alliance have documented mostly positive effects of brand alliance on consumer brand evaluations. Two important consumer characteristics' effect on brand alliance evaluation, brand knowledge and product involvement, were testified to expand the scope of influential factors of brand alliance evaluation on the basis of consumers' characteristic theory.