Ingredient branding and feedback effects: The impact of product outcomes, initial parent brand strength asymmetry, and parent brand role

Ingredient branding is a popular strategy involving two “parent” brands developing a co-branded product, called an ingredient branding offering (IBO). Drawing on extant brand literatures, we investigate how brand feedback effects are influenced by (1) the initial brand strength among the parent brands (low vs. high), (2) parent brand roles (whether the brand is the host or ingredient), and (3) IBO success and failure. Three experiments indicate that IBO success positively affects both parent brands, but the positive feedback is much more substantial for the weaker (vs. the stronger) brand. Under the failure condition, the strong ingredient brand is the only parent that is somewhat protected from an IBO failure. All the other IBO possibilities—in terms of brand strength and parent role—suffer from substantial negative feedback and share a high level of responsibility for the failure. Managerial and theoretical implications are drawn from these results.