Resumo

Luxury brands have a central role in identifying the origin and/or property of a particular object - by property this concept can be extended to the social belonging that the brand guarantees to those who use it (Blackett; Russell, 1999) - and to create the necessary symbolic content that the consumers value most. Branding is fundamental in creating a memorable impression on consumers that saves precious time in the search for the necessary information in order to evaluate and select the option that offers the best value, in terms of the balance of costs and benefits offered (Aaker, 2009).

The main hypothesis tested in this article is that in a specific co-branding strategy between a more popular brand linked to streetwear and a more luxurious one, respectively Nike and Off-White, the most popular brand will have real gains in terms of brand evaluation, attitudes and purchase intention.

The practice of co-branding (Blackett; Russell, 1999) is widely used. Co-branding is a form of cooperation between two or more brands, both with recognized meaning by the consumer, in which the name of all participants is kept, that is, two brands are presented to the consumer as a new one. Virtuozo (2015) states that the union of brands with similar promises and values in the process of collaboration is essential so that intangible advantages that go beyond the financial aspect are achieved, abstract values and positive associations will be generated in front of the consumer.

In order to evaluate the impacts of evaluation of each of the brands present in products fruits of a collab (specific between Nike and Off-White) qualitative and quantitative research was conducted. In-depth interviews were conducted with three heavy-user consumers of brands of the style studied and incorporated in this same universe. In the quantitative stage, a descriptive survey was carried out, where consumption habits, socioeconomic profile and mainly, the evaluation of the Nike brand was evaluated from different stimuli where the interviewees were divided into two groups.

Through qualitative interviews, it was possible to identify some trends of specific characteristics of consumers of this segment. There is a possible concentration of the market in a profile characterized by young urban consumer, linked to popular cultural movements such as hip-hop, skateboarding and sports related to brands.The quantitative research was responded by 251 people. Among them, 138 received the stimulus of Nike products and 113 received the stimulus of Nike products with Off-White. Answers were collected for the questionnaire online between July 21, 2020 and September 13, 2020.

The initial hypothesis that collab between two brands with different luxuosity levels would leverage the evaluation of the most popular brand with its consumers proved to be partially true. On the one hand, Nike has strong brand equity and the resulting measure did not obtain variance between the two groups, suggesting empirically that the brand itself presents a great evaluation, regardless of the products shown to respondents. On the other hand, Nike had lower gains in other aspects, such as measuring the attitude towards the brand and the attitude towards the brand in fashion.

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