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JFMM
14,1 Fashion collaboration or
collision?
Examining the match-up effect in
6 co-marketing alliances
Received March 2009 SooKyoung Ahn, HaeJung Kim and Judith A. Forney
Revised June 2009 School of Merchandising & Hospitality Management,
Accepted June 2009 University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA
Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to exploit the match-up effect to fashion collaborations by distinguishing
the consumers’ fit association at a cognitive and attitudinal level. It seeks to investigate the mediating
role of the match-up perception by identifying the antecedents of match-up perception and the attitude
formation in co-marketing alliance.
Design/methodology/approach – A total of 273 Korean women were surveyed to compare the
product/brand associations, and assess the level of match-up perception and overall attitude toward
the two fictitious co-marketing alliance cases.
Findings – The study argued that the match-up perception mediated between framing criteria and
the attitude toward co-marketing alliance. Usage situation, user identity, and perceived brand equity
were valuable factors in the perception of alliance match-up. This match-up perception at a cognition
level is a necessary condition prior to consumer attitude at an attitudinal level.
Research limitations/implications – The research stimuli are limited to two fictitious alliance cases.
Expanding cases to diverse product categories and brands’ stimuli enhances the empirical validity. The
cross-cultural approach with diverse regions is further considered for enhancing research reliability.
Originality/value – The study exhibits an innovative fashion collaboration phenomenon. On
empirically demonstrating the mediating effect of match-up perception in the context of co-marketing
alliance, the study suggests the theoretical and practical insights in the Korean and global fashion
industries.
Keywords Fashion industry, Brand management, Marketing strategy
Paper type Research paper

Journal of Fashion Marketing and
Management
Vol. 14 No. 1, 2010
pp. 6-20
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1361-2026
DOI 10.1108/13612021011025401
Introduction
Diverse partnership strategies in the fashion industry that allow new and innovative
designs to be developed are prompting collaborations between designers, or between
designer and mass brands, as a mainstream form of partnerships in the past few years
(Ivan, 2008). Although no uniform definition exists, the term “fashion collaboration” is
used to describe the range of cooperative activities from short-term reputation
endorsement (Cooke and Ryan, 2000) to long-term collaborations on core competencies
(Cooke and Ryan, 2000). “Fashion collaborations” leverage entire fashion business
concepts that transform their branding strategy into not only “sleeping with enemies,”
but also to “talking to strangers” regardless of product types. Firms are willingly
accepting intra-industrial collaborations (e.g. Collette and Gap store, NY; Stella
McCartney collection for H&M) as well as inter-industrial partnerships (e.g. Prada-LG
cell phones; Ermenegildo Zegna iJacket for iPods) which may open either a lucrative
new market or create a brand collision between partners. Recent inter-industrial
partnerships between technology and fashion brands, mainly led by Korean
technology industry, are contrary to intra-industrial collaborations performed by Fashion
world famous designers and retailers in Europe and the US. For instance, Samsung collaboration or
Electronics is a multinational company that operates in more than 50 countries and
dominates high-tech industries from TVs and LCD screens to DRAM (Michal, 2007). collision?
Samsung, furthermore, overtook Motorola as the world’s second-largest handset maker
in 2007, LG, another Korean company, passed Motorola in 2008 (Moon, 2009). Why are
they eager to metamorphose with aliens? It might be believed that a Korean brand, 7
which has the excellent product quality can effectively enhance their brand reputation
in short time span by the innovative collaboration with a global fashion brand.
Although occupying the large market share with their high technical power, they are
struggling to shed a copycat image and acquire a prestige identity, and to become a top
competitor in emerging fast-growing markets such as India and Latin America
(Michal, 2007; Moon, 2009). Through partnering with fashion brands that hold
established strong, unique, and favorable brand associations in consumer’s mind,
non-fashion brands may amplify the fascinating collaborations or destroy their brand
reputation resulting consumer’s conceptual collision. For example, through their
partnership, LG obtains the improved global connectivity to mainstream luxury and
innovative markets, and Prada expands its influence into an innovative
technology-related market identified as a creative trendsetter. These inter-industrial
partnerships are explicitly distinct from other conventional fashion collaborations and
they are referred to “co-marketing alliances.”
To scrutinize the conceptual relevance of a co-marketing alliance further than the
conventional brand extension approach, it is useful to adapt the “match-up hypothesis”
found in advertising research. Increasing the fit perception between endorsers and
products can enhance a product’s attractiveness, which in turn leads to higher brand
attitude and purchase intentions (Till and Busler, 2000). This is the associative
mechanism by which links or relationships are formed between concepts (Klein, 1991;
Martindale, 1991). In a co-marketing alliance, by partnering fashion and non-fashion
brands, two brands may become a part of each other’s association, which ultimately
leads to an incremental positive attitude. Moreover, it provides theoretical insights and
practical applications in terms of partner selections and match-up effect on
implementing a co-marketing alliance strategy (Lynch and Schuler, 1994; Solomon
et al., Walker et al., 1992; Till and Busler, 2000).
The purpose of this study was to exploit the match-up perception to the
co-marketing alliance between heterogeneous product categories by distinguishing the
consumers’ fit association at the cognitive level and attitudinal level respectively. This
study aimed:
.
to identify the antecedents of match-up perception in co-marketing alliance;
.
to examine the hypothesized relationships between brand and product
associations, and alliance match-up perception; and
.
to investigate the direct impact of brand and product association on attitude
toward alliance.

Literature review
From fashion collaboration to co-marketing alliance
The fashion collaboration phenomenon can be converted into branding strategies such
as dual branding, product bundling, ingredient branding, co-branding and brand
JFMM extension. Dual branding is commonly used to denote hybridized retailers utilizing a
14,1 single location site (Levin et al., 1996) to buy two brands’ products in the same place
(e.g. “Commes de Garcons” and “Louis Vuitton” temporary pop-up store in Tokyo).
Product bundling is the strategy where a primary product and a less expensive tie-in
product are sold together for one price (Levin et al., 1996). Ingredient branding, in
which key attributes are incorporated into another brand as ingredients (e.g. Ecco
8 shoes with Gore-Tex) enhances differentiation with a more important ingredient
facilitating the host brand’s differentiation and evaluations to a greater extent (Desai
and Keller, 2002; Uggla, 2006). Co-branding is the use of two distinct brand names on
one product, and is often accepted as the same as brand alliance or composite brand
(Levin et al., 1996; Leuthesser et al., 2003). The Y3 brand born between Adidas and
Yohji Yamamoto, and the Karl Lagerfeld line for H &M are examples of co-branding. A
brand extension uses an established brand name to enter new product categories
(Keller and Aaker, 1992). For example, Armani Casa, home furnishing brand is one of
the extensions of Armani brand. Although these strategies bring all parties mutual
benefit through the exchange of desirable image attributes, they typically include one
product component that is more prominent than the other (Levin et al., 1996). In
addition, they are performed temporarily, and generated within the fashion or the
related industries. Another recent diversion of brand related strategy is “co-marketing
alliance.” It refers to lateral collaboration between companies from different sectors.
The participants are at the same level in the value-added chain, so it allows them to
create joint naming and to technically cooperate on an equal and independent status
(Varadarajan and Rajaratnam, 1986; Bucklin and Sengupta, 1993). This symbiotic
marketing is distinct from any other fashion collaboration activities. For instance, a
Samsung-Armani cell-phone may seem to be mere co-branding. It, however, could be
one way of extending to new product categories by Armani, while it could be a
differentiation strategy of cell-phone products using the brand name of Armani as a
licensor to Samsung. Based on each brand’s own specialty, these brands
technologically cooperate in developing a new product (i.e. Prada is in charge of
designing and Samsung takes on manufacturing), and sell it at each brand’s store.
Furthermore, a co-marketing alliance continuously evolves into more complex alliance,
the example of “Samsung-Armani symbiosis” diverse expands their territory from
cell-phone to HDTV.

The match-up effects in co-marketing alliances

The match-up hypothesis provides an intuitive theoretical platform to project recent
co-marketing alliances between different industry sectors. The match-up hypothesis
explains how the image of a spokesperson affects consumers’ product and
advertisement evaluations (Koernig and Page, 2002). It is introduced in advertising
research that examines the differential impact of the endorsed brand by means of
different endorser types (Till and Busler, 2000). The match-up hypothesis argues that
advertisements are more effective when the endorser’s image matches up with the
endorsed products (Kamins, 1990; Till and Busler, 2000). For example, more favorable
brand attitude arises when the product is paired with an attractive celebrity endorser
(Kahle and Homer, 1985). The “perception of match-up” is often used synonymously as
similarity, congruity, fittingness, match-up, and consistency in brand alliances
(Simonin and Ruth, 1998); brand extensions (Tauber, 1981; Lynch and Schuler, 1994);
and brand endorsers research (Kanungo and Pang, 1973; Kamins, 1990; Solomon et al., Fashion
1992; Lynch and Schuler, 1994; Walker et al., 1992; Till and Busler, 2000). However, collaboration or
“match-up” implies not just similarities but harmony and combination as well because
the concept of match-up perception is derived from several fundamental theories: collision?
schema theory (Lynch and Schuler, 1994), social adaptation theory (Kahle and Homer,
1985; Kamins, 1990), categorization theory (Zimmer and Bhat, 2004), and associative
network theory (Pina et al., 2006). 9
According to Smith and Park’s (1992) classification of “similarity,” intrinsic bases of
perception of match-up include “manufacturing skills” and “physical
feature/component part,” whereas, the dimensions of “needs satisfied” and “product
usage situations” are explained as extrinsic bases. Klink and Smith (2001) assess the
perceived match-up in terms of component parts, product features, functions, needs
they satisfy, usage situations, manufacturing process, and servicing. However, most
brand extension and brand alliance studies identify and develop factors based on
Aaker and Keller’s (1990) three dimensions of fit between two products in a brand
extension context:
(1) complementarity;
(2) substitutability; and
(3) transferability (Hem and Iversen, 2003; Nkwocha et al., 2005).

Complementarity indicates the extent to which consumers view the original and
extension product categories as complements when the two products categories are
consumed jointly to satisfy some particular need. Substitutability is the extent to which
consumers view two product categories as substitutes, which tend to have a common
application and use context to satisfy the same needs. Transferability pertains to how
consumers view relationships in product manufacturing (Aaker and Keller, 1990;
Nkwocha et al., 2005). Specifically, the match-up perception between two different
products is rarely attained in terms of physical features, components or manufacturing
process. Therefore, to assess the match-up perception of product categories, it is
necessary to observe subjective symbolic value as well as objective functional
attributes of product categories.
In co-marketing alliances, complementarity and substitutability are mainly related
to usage situations. It is assumed that if consumers can easily imagine that two
different category products are used or complementary to each other in a certain
situation, they might perceive two product categories are well paired under
co-marketing alliances. In addition to common usage situations, the characteristics of
the user such as innovativeness, value, and other features or images should be
considered in innovative and global technology and fashion brands. Consumers’
acceptability or innovativeness is reported to influence brand extension evaluation
(Klink and Smith, 2001; Zimmer and Bhat, 2004). Furthermore, the benefit from certain
products satisfies consumers’ needs, and is interpreted as purchase criteria. It is
inferred that similar or complementary and substituent benefits from two different
products may influence consumers’ perceptions. A brand specific association which
consumers perceive from the brand name is defined as an attribute or benefit that
differentiates that brand from others (Broniarczyk and Alba, 1994), and resembles
“brand equity” in endowing the brand with identity and differentiation.
Consumer-based brand equity, which originates when consumers have familiar,
JFMM positive and strong associations in their memory (Lassar et al., 1995; Keller, 2003),
14,1 offers a consistent view point for this study in terms of evaluating brand name by
consumers. It is presumed that consumers may similarly process the dimensions of
consumer-based brand equity when they evaluate brands in a co-marketing alliance. In
other words, perceived brand quality, brand awareness, overall brand equity (Aaker,
1996; Yoo et al., 2000), and brand specific image may be constituents of assessing the
10 degree of perception of match-up.
To sum up, the stored associations including functional/symbolic, or
intrinsic/extrinsic attributes related to two brands or product categories will be used
to assess the perception of alliance match-up. Thus, the following hypotheses were
investigated:
H1a. Usage situation is positively related to the perception of alliance match-up.
H1b. User identity is positively related to the perception of alliance match-up.
H1c. Purchase criteria is positively related to the perception of alliance match-up.
H1d. Perceived brand equity is positively related to the perception of alliance
match-up.
H1e. Brand specific image is positively related to the perception of alliance
match-up.
Goodstein (1993) argues that when confronted with a stimulus, people automatically
attempt to match it with an evoked category description. When there is a match, people
will evaluate the stimulus on the basis of affect stored in the category schema. If there
is a mismatch, a piecemeal evaluation is made. Accordingly, consumers may evaluate a
co-marketing alliance on the basis of stored affect of the constituent brands in their
memory, when there is match between two brands. This match-up effect can be further
supported by social adaptation theory, which implies that the adaptive significance of
information will determine its impact. People seek equilibrium with the environment
by assimilating new information into existing schemata, and, while accommodating
mental structures to incorporate new, discrepant information. If people decide a
particular source of information has achieved its potential based on usefulness for
adaptation (within one’s environment), processing of that particular information will
cease, and they will proceed to a new source of information (Kahle and Homer, 1985;
Homer and Kahle, 1986). From this point of view, social adaptation theory fits well with
the match-up hypothesis of partner selections where messages are conveyed by the
brand image and the message about the product converge in attitude. Greater
perception of match-up, therefore, may lead to greater transfer of positive associations
that consumers hold and positive attitude (Kahle and Homer, 1985). Thus, the
following hypothesis was investigated:
H2. Perception of alliance match-up is positively related to attitude toward
alliance.
Developing new associations in brand alliances, each brand brings its own associations
to the relationship (James, 2006). It seems interesting to examine whether associations
directly affect consumer attitudes without the mediating effect of match-up perception.
Information is stored in memory in the form of “associative networks” that are
comprised of concept nodes and prepositional links. The nodes include a firm’s name, a Fashion
product’s brand name, product features, and people and occasions, and the links make collaboration or
various associations by connecting nodes together to form a network of ideas, or
knowledge structures (Henderson et al., 1998). Once the link has been established, the collision?
memory nodes of the participant brands will be compared, and evaluated to form
attitude toward alliance (Figure 1). The Schema theory also supports the relationship
between the specific associations and consumer attitude in a co-marketing alliance. 11
Schema refers to a generic knowledge structure or frameworks that organize an
individual’s memory of information about particular stimulus domain such as people
and events based on past experience (Hunt et al., 1992; Warlaumont, 1997). A schema
consists of category attributes of stimulus domain as well as their links, prototypic
exemplars, and an affective tag assessing one’s attitude toward members of the
category (Robertson and Kassarjian, 1991; Goodstein, 1993). Therefore, consumers
integrate new information with existing attitudes when they receive new data about an
entity. This integration process allows for held beliefs to be modified or reinforced. It is
intriguing to examine whether associations directly affect consumer attitudes without
the mediating effect of match-up perception. Therefore, the following hypotheses were
tested:
H3a. Usage situation is positively related to attitude toward alliance.
H3b. User identity is positively related to attitude toward alliance.
H3c. Purchase criteria is positively related to attitude toward alliance.
H3d. Perceived brand equity is positively related to attitude toward alliance.
H3e. Brand specific image is positively related to attitude toward alliance.

Figure 1.
Hypothesized structural
model for the match-up
effect in brand alliance
JFMM Methodology
14,1 Sample and data collection
Self-administered questionnaires were completed by a convenient sample of 273
female residents in Seoul, Korea. Surveys were collected by the snowball sampling
where study subjects recruited future subjects from among their acquaintances, aged
20 to 39. Female subjects are very suitable for this study because they are generally
12 reported to be more innovative in terms of fashion and shopping (Goldsmith et al.,
1987; Beaudoin, 2003; Ha and Stoel, 2004; Stith and Goldsmith, 2006). And these age
groups are supposed to be mainly targeted consumers of the stimulus product
categories of this study. A survey was conducted with two alliance scenarios in the
form of news articles. Participants answered a series of questions regarding their
evaluations of paired product-categories, brands, and alliances and were compensated
with a soft drink or stationery. Table I shows the demographic information of all
respondents.
To avoid any dilution effect resulting from respondents’ bias in case of using the
existing alliance cases, the fictitious cases were manipulated. Following the
suggestion that employing authentic brands is critical so that the genuine brand’s
affect and associations can be activated by the brand alliance (Simonin and Ruth,
1998), two fictitious co-marketing alliances scenarios were manipulated with
authentic brands:
(1) Case 1: jeans-laptop computer (Levi’s-Samsung Sense; n ¼ 273); and
(2) Case 2: jeans-branded residential apartment (Levi’s- LG Zi; n ¼ 271).

Variables Frequency (%) Percent

Age
20-24 104 38.2
25-29 102 37.4
30-34 44 16.1
35-39 23 8.4
Income(monthly in US$)
Below $2,000 64 23.4
$2,000-$4,000 56 20.5
$4,000-$6,000 48 17.6
$6,000-$8,000 30 12.1
$8,000-$10,000 33 12.1
Above $10,000 41 15.0
Occupation
Student 102 37.4
Employed 162 59.3
Unemployed 9 3.3
Education
Year 12 or less 20 7.3
Table I. University 62 22.7
Demographic profile of Bachelor’s degree 113 41.4
respondents Master’s degree or higher 78 28.6
Stimuli brands were determined on the basis of previous year sales performances at Fashion
three major department stores in Korea and secondary data from Korea National collaboration or
Statistical Office, K-BPI (Korea Brand Power Index), and KCSI (Korean Customer
Satisfaction Index) from KMAC (Korean Management Association Consulting). To collision?
control the inter-product category effect, a focus group (total n ¼ 23) was interviewed.
A jeans brand (Levi’s) was chosen as the alliance linchpin, between two compatible
products. Accordingly, 41 stimuli partner brands which were not directly related to or 13
did not belong to the fashion industry were selected. The match-up levels of 41
fictitious alliance cases in which a fashion brand was paired with 41 partner brands
were evaluated by graduate students (n ¼ 23) using a seven-point Likert-type format
(1 ¼ totally not matched, 7 ¼ totally well matched). Consequently, two compatible
brands, laptop and branded residential apartment brands, which had contrasting
levels of matching with jeans were decided.
To measure the match-up effects in co-marketing alliance, existing scales were used:
brand association and product association (Choi and Koh, 1995; Aaker, 1997; Ryu and
Lim, 1998; Park, 2006), perceived match-up (Aaker and Keller, 1990; Smith and Park,
1992; Hem and Iversen, 2003; Zimmer and Bhat, 2004; Lebar et al., 2005), and overall
alliance attitude using seven-point Likert-type scale (1 ¼ strongly disagree,
7 ¼ strongly agree).
To analyze the data, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) validated measures of
constructs, and multi-group CFA assessed unidimensionality and metric equivalence
across two alliance cases. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was employed
to test hypothesized relationships.

Measurement invariance test

A constrained CFA was conducted to ensure the unidimensionality of measurements
for each of two alliances cases. If the measurement properties are the same for the two
cases, then factor patterns and factor loadings should be equal (Calantone and Zhao,
2001). The factor structures of two cases were set to be invariant in the constrained
model, the result showed that there was not a significant increase in the chi-square
value between the unconstrained model and the constrained model (Dx 2ð12Þ ¼ 8:025,
p ¼ 0:783 . 0:05). The constrained model also exhibited a adequate fit: x 2ð262Þ ¼
512:634 (p ¼ 0:000), NIF ¼ 0:934, CIF ¼ 0:966, RMSEA ¼ 0:042, x 2 =df ¼ 1:957).
Thus, full configural invariance was supported so that the measurements of two cases
were assumed invariant. Based on the invariance, CFA was employed to validate the
applied measurements, using the combined data set (n ¼ 544) (Table II). CFA
generated 19 indicators to measure seven latent constructs:
(1) usage situation;
(2) user identity;
(3) purchase criteria;
(4) perceived brand equity;
(5) brand specific image;
(6) alliance match-up perception; and
(7) attitude toward alliance.
JFMM
Construct Extracted
14,1 Construct S.F.L.a SE t-value reliabilityb variancec

Usage situation
X1: fitness to any place and time 0.941 – – 0.885 0.80
X2: similarity of occasion to use 0.843 0.046 20.101
14 User identity
X3: similarity of express users’ value 0.731 – –
X4: innovative user 0.909 0.062 20.602 0.873 0.71
X5: passionate user 0.882 0.061 20.171
Purchase criteria
X6: fashion consciousness 0.791 – –
X7: fashionability 0.798 0.063 16.988 0.750 0.53
X8: easiness to care 0.574 0.060 12.540
Perceived brand equity
X9: perceived brand quality 0.832 – –
X10: brand awareness 0.763 0.049 19.527 0.849 0.65
X11: perceived overall brand equity 0.820 0.049 21.435
Brand-specific image
X12: attractiveness 0.837 – –
X13: famousness 0.820 0.046 21.946 0.879 0.71
X14: stylishness 0.851 0.045 23.001
X15: practicability 0.655 0.048 16.302
Perception of alliance match-up
X20: fitness as a partner 0.945 – –
X21: harmony 0.973 0.020 52.993 0.966 0.87
X22: combination 0.940 0.023 45.372
Attitude toward alliance
X23: likeness 0.946 – – 0.947 0.90
X24: favorableness 0.952 0.024 40.486
Table II. Notes: x 2 ¼ 324.802 (df ¼ 131, p , 0.000); NFI ¼ 0.961; CFI ¼ 0.976; RMSEA ¼ 0.052;
a
Measurement model Standardized factor loading; the first item for each construct was set to 1; b Cronbach a;
c
results (n ¼ 544) Calculated as [S(std. loading2)] / [S(std. loading2)] þ Sji]

CFA results revealed a good model fit with a chi-square of 324.802 (df ¼ 131;
p , 0:001), NFI of 0.961, CFI of 0.976, and RMSEA of 0.052. All items loaded
significantly (t-value . 1.96) on their corresponding latent constructs indicating
convergent validity was obtained. Construct reliabilities ranged from Cronbach’s alpha
of 0.75 to 0.97. Discriminant validity was supported based on the comparison between
average variance extracted (AVE) of each pair of constructs and F2 (i.e. the squared
correlation between two constructs). F2 did not exceed AVE between each pair of
constructs as shown in Table III. Overall, discriminant validity was obtained.
To dilute the halo effect obtained by using genuine brand names, the hypothesized
structural model was tested with the combined data of two cases. The x 2 of 324.802
(df ¼ 131, p ¼ 0:000; x 2 =df ¼ 2:479), NIF of 0.961, CIF of 0.976, and RMSEA of 0.052
supported a good fit.
 Fashion
Construct 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
collaboration or
1.
2.
Usage situation
User identity
0.80
0.57
0.33
0.71
0.25
0.52
0.16
0.19
0.06
0.09
0.25
0.21
0.16
0.19
collision?
3. Purchase criteria 0.50 0.72 0.53 0.20 0.07 0.14 0.13
4. Perceived brand equity 0.40 0.43 0.45 0.65 0.53 0.35 0.31
5. Brand-specific image 0.24 0.31 0.26 0.73 0.71 0.15 0.16 15
6. Perception of alliance match-up 0.50 0.45 0.37 0.60 0.39 0.87 0.68
7. Attitude toward alliance 0.40 0.44 0.37 0.56 0.40 0.82 0.90
Table III.
Notes: The diagonal italic numbers represent the AVE where the lower diagonal area represents the Correlation and F2 of
correlation between each construct, and the upper area represents F2 constructs

Results
The result of hypotheses testing showed that four of 11 hypotheses were significant. It
demonstrated that several associations drawn from brand and product category
associations were positively related to the perception of alliance match-up and to
consumer attitude toward alliance. Specifically, the perception of match-up played a
mediating role in generating consumer attitude toward alliance from the associations
of brand and product category (Table IV).
Having scrutinized the relationships, H1 examined if associations related to brand
and product category effected consumer perception of match-up in co-marketing
alliances. Three of five association types: usage situation (b ¼ 0:255, p , :001), user
identity (b ¼ 0:250, p , 0:01), and perceived brand equity (b ¼ 0:616, p , 0:001) had
a significantly positive impact on consumer perception of alliance match-up. Thus,
H1a, H1b, and H1d were supported. Perceived brand equity was the decisive
antecedent over perception of alliance match-up. Testing H2 confirmed the strong
impact of perception of match-up in alliance on consumer attitude toward alliance
(b ¼ 0:784, p , 0:001). Thus, H2 was supported. Interestingly, no evidence was found
for the direct effect of the brand and product category associations to consumer
attitude toward co-marketing alliances. Thus H3 was rejected.

Paths Estimate C.R.

H1a: Usage situation ! Perception of alliance match-up 0.255 * * 5.038

H1b: User identity ! Perception of alliance match-up 0.250 * 2.752
H1c: Purchase criteria ! Perception of alliance match-up Not supported
H1d: Perceived brand equity ! Perception of alliance match-up 0.616 * * 6.776
H1e: Brand specific image ! Perception of alliance match-up Not supported
H2a: Usage situation ! Attitude toward alliance Not supported
H2b: User identity ! Attitude toward alliance Not supported
H2c: Purchase criteria ! Attitude toward alliance Not supported
H2d: Perceived brand equity ! Attitude toward alliance Not supported
H2e: Brand-specific image ! Attitude toward alliance Not supported
H3: Perception of alliance match-up ! Attitude toward alliance 0.784 * * 18.587
Table IV.
Notes: * p , 0.01; * * p , 0.001; Model fit: Chi-square ¼ 324.802 (df ¼ 131, p , 0.000; NFI ¼ 0.961; The structural model
CFI ¼ 0.976; RMSEA ¼ 0.052 results
JFMM In sum, how similar are the associations that consumers retrieve from two different
14,1 brands or product categories is a major antecedent of consumer perception of match-up
in alliance. Precisely, the harmony or consistency that consumers feel between two
different brands or product categories in terms of usage situation, user identity and
perceived brand equity is more influential. In addition, examining the relationships
among the associations, perception of match-up, and attitude revealed the indirect
16 effect of these specific associations on consumer attitude toward alliance.
Consequently, these results support the mediating role of match-up perception in
generating consumer attitude, and suggest the high applicability of match-up
perception to the context of co-marketing alliance between heterogeneous industries.

Conclusions
Prevailing and emerging market trends such as the convergence and divergence in
consumer cultures, as well as the abundance of accessible information resulting from
technology advancements, have led the Korean industry to demand innovative fashion
collaboration with global brands. By adapting the match-up effect, this study
empirically exhibits the fashion collaboration as co-marketing alliance phenomenon
with the theoretical relevance and practical insights.
First, consumers’ perception of match-up is an integral mediator to create successful
co-marketing alliance between fashion and non-fashion products. The strong
relationship between match-up perception and attitudes toward alliance reveals a
specific mechanism in generating attitude in consumers’ minds. Specifically, the
match-up perception at a cognition level is a necessary condition prior to generating
consumer attitude. The cognitive response model supports this finding. Cognitive
responses refer to the thoughts and ideas evoked by advertisements and other types of
persuasive messages (Brinol et al., 2004). The spontaneous cognitive responses reflect
the psychological processes underlying persuasion (Meirick, 2002). At this point, the
spontaneous thoughts are elicited by exposure to a message and then perform as a
direct mediator of attitude creation or change. This cognitive response model concerns
the initial cognitive processes by which information in an advertisement causes belief
formation, changes in belief strength or evaluation, or subsequent attitude formation or
change (Olson et al., 1982). When consumers receive a new message called
“co-marketing alliance”, the fashion brand and non-fashion brand will be compared
and information processing is activated in their memory networks. As a spontaneous
response of the process, the perception of match-up between two paired brands is
elicited. It subsequently generates consumer attitude toward the co-marketing alliance.
Second, the finding suggests the criteria for partnering in co-marketing alliance.
When searching a partner brand from different product sector, marketers should
consider that usage situation, user identity, and perceived brand equity are very vital
factors in determining the perception of alliance match-up. Partnering with a brand
which allocates same usage situation, user identity, and perceived brand equity can be
a “clincher”, not a fatal “collision.” Specifically, this is imperative for the alliance with
fashion brands that constitute fluctuating associations and multifaceted symbolic
meanings. This result suggests that a multi-dimensional approach to these
associations may be needed in future research.
Most of the understanding of co-marketing alliance is embedded in discrete and
fragmented approaches that are industrial and cultural specific. In addition, it is very
difficult to create profitably successful fashion collaboration due to the unique Fashion
characteristics of fashion brands. This study proposes to marketers that they should collaboration or
not limit the alliance partner within the same industry, but it is more important to
discover the alliable product category in terms of the match-up perception. Choosing a collision?
strong brand with great equity is essential to securing a successful match-up
perception in co-marketing alliance.
Finding ways and means to incorporate heterogeneous industry partners is an 17
ongoing challenge. Although this study provides initial insights into gauging the
applicability of the match-up concept to co-marketing alliances between fashion and
non-fashion products, this study has some limitations. The research stimuli were
limited to two fictitious alliance cases. Further research using diverse product
categories and brands, and more stimuli cases are necessary to reinforce the findings.
Furthermore, it is worth using genuine fashion collaboration cases. Finally, “the
match-up” is the password to “collaboration”!

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Corresponding author
SooKyoung Ahn can be contacted at: soo-kyoung.ahn@unt.edu

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