Advertising strategies for brand image repair: The effectiveness of advertising alliances

Advertising alliances are an effective shortcut to increase brand awareness and improve brand image. However, few studies have compared the effectiveness of advertising alliances with traditional (single-brand) advertising. Thus, this study focuses on a specific type of brand beliefs – namely, brand personality – and compares the ability of advertising alliances and traditional advertising to strengthen positive traits and downplay negative traits for a real brand in need of image repair. The results show that the advertising alliance is considerably more effective in upgrading positive brand personality traits than single-brand advertising. Importantly, this superior effect remained one week after exposure. The choice of advertising strategy had no effect on negative brand personality traits. Implications for advertising management are discussed.