Avengers, assemble! A network-based contingency analysis of spillover effects in multi-brand alliances

Brand alliances are becoming increasingly complex, as marketers have begun to combine not only two but multiple brands to foster spillover effects. A particularly complex brand-alliance strategy is team brands, which combine various brands under a team-brand name. Using data from the Marvel brand universe, we examine contingency factors of sales spillover effects between team brands (e.g., Avengers) and their constituent brands (e.g., Hulk). We investigate the moderating role of key network characteristics, describing the team-brand networks and the constituent brands’ roles within these networks from both a firm perspective (brand-brand networks reflecting managers’ decisions about which constituent brands to combine) and a consumer perspective (brand-association networks reflecting consumers’ team-brand associations). The results show that network characteristics strongly affect spillovers and, more importantly, that their effect depends on both the direction (spillover from constituent brands to team brands or vice versa) and the network (brand-brand vs. brand-association network).