SELECTING AN OPTIMAL STRUCTURE OF CO-BRANDING ALLIANCE FOR AN INTEGRATED BUSINESS STRUCTURE

Co-branding is an actual trend in the development of integration processes in business, since it reveals a specific form of relationship between internal and external environment in building competitive advantages in the context of integrated business structures evolution and growth. The aim of the study is the selection of an optimal structure of co-branding alliance for an integrated business structure based on the assessment of economic effects from co-branding and evaluation of the brand congruence level. The study presents a comprehensive system of synergistic co-branding strategy development built upon the implementation of a three-stage algorithm. The goal of synergistic co-branding strategy development is attaining such a branding alliance out of all possible alternatives where the economic benefits from a particular brand of integrated business structure will transform into synergistic interaction effects within the co-branding alliance. With the aim of empirical testing the relevance relationships and components of consumer attitudes to co-branding an expert evaluation of potential co-branding alliances for the Fozzy Group integrated business structure has been carried out. Given the brand congruence assessment results in terms of brand relevance and customer expectations indicators, clustering of possible co-branding alliances by the specified criteria has been performed. The evaluation of economic effects from co-branding was carried out among those co-branding alliances which demonstrated the highest level of congruence. To determine the optimal variants for co-branding alliances within Fozzy Group an ABC-analysis has been used. This study provides the rationality that co-branding is a logical follow-up of the innovation process expansion and enhancement of integrated marketing of IBS activities. The emergence of a joint product resulting from such strategic partnership between business units becomes a determining factor in the co-branding strategy and in the context of integrated structures fosters full integration of their marketing mix. From this perspective, building a co-brand seems to be a logical approach and optimal solution for further joint activities of integrated business units.