The impact of a prestigious partner on affinity card marketing

Purpose - This study investigates the synergetic impact of joint marketing collaboration between a bank and an affinity organisation on their affinity credit card holders' behaviours. Seeks to identify the sources of the influence of the alliance partners which induce changes in the attitude and behaviour of cardholders. Design/methodology/approach - A theoretical model was developed to reveal the impact of perceived card benefits, affective customer loyalty toward the bank, affective customer loyalty toward the affinity organisation, and perceived prestige of affinity organisation, on the card usage behaviours of customers. Survey data were obtained from 162 students who were holders of a university affinity credit card in Hong Kong. Findings - Findings indicated two routes of influence that affect the intention and behaviours of affinity credit cardholders. The two routes were complementary rather than competitive in a symbiotic collaboration. The first is a cognitive route. It shows that a cardholder's attitude formation is strongly influenced by the cognitive evaluation of card benefits instead of by affective loyalty toward the bank or toward the affinity organisation. The second route is an emotional route of influence. It originates from the perceived prestige of the affinity organisation to cardholders' intention and usage behaviours. Originality/value - The impact of the symbiotic collaboration on customer behaviours is an important question which has yet to be answered in the literature of strategic alliances. To the best of one's knowledge, this is a pioneering empirical study addressing this research issue.