Corporate Branding in the FMCG Industry - The Impact of Perceived Fit

Sammanfattning: Large FMCG conglomerates have recently started to engage in corporate branding activities, communicating that there is a substantial firm behind multiple well- established brands. This means that the consumer now becomes increasingly aware that seemingly independent product brands somehow are connected. Given that those companies operate brand portfolios within the most distinct categories this thesis has tapped into the so far completely untouched impact of category fit on a consumer's evaluation of the corporate brand. Through looking at three different corporate brand building dimensions: corporate brand credibility, perceived corporate brand understanding and a corporate brand's "boundaries" this thesis aims at investigating how those dimensions are influenced by the composition of a brand portfolio. More specifically, how a consumer's evaluation of the above mentioned dimensions differs depending on if the company operates a homogeneous or heterogeneous brand portfolio (high vs. low fit). The results from an online survey conducted with 214 German students show that perceived fit has an impact on all three dimensions investigated. While fit showed to have only a moderate impact on the company's perceived credibility, results are much stronger in regard to the consumer's ability to grasp what the company is about. It also has been found that fit strongly influences whether a corporate brand is perceived as a specialist or generalist and thus sets the frame for a brands future operations. The findings suggest that brand manager should carefully assess how the breadth of the corporate brand should be perceived.