‘Corporate image at stake’: The impact of crises and response strategies on consumer perceptions of corporate brand alliances

Abstract Corporate co-branding, or brand alliances, is a popular strategy, regarded as beneficial to the allied brands. There are, however, caveats to this strategy due to crises concerning one of the partner brands. Employing an experiment, we investigate the impact of crisis types and response strategies, and the interactions, on corporate image of the culpable ally, the non-culpable partner, and the alliance. Results show that preventable crises, high in controllability and intentionality, are detrimental to the image of the culpable ally. Deny response is, nonetheless, effective for restoring corporate image, when compared with diminish or acknowledge/rebuild responses. We further demonstrate that the non-culpable partner suffers from crises only indirectly, due to negative post-crisis attitudes toward the alliance, which in turn influence intentions to purchase alliance offering. Our findings underscore the need for corporate brands to use co-branding with caution, carefully planning for crises, and judiciously considering the viability of response strategies