Consumer Responses to Collaboration Products: Value Perceptions, Self-Congruence, and Willingness to Pay a Premium

As collaboration branding becomes increasingly prominent in today's global and highly competitive marketplace, understanding how consumers evaluate collaboration products and develop premium purchase intentions is of both theoretical and practical significance.This study addresses existing gaps in the literature by exploring how four empirically derived collaboration product attributes scarcity, collaboration, originality, and empathy affect consumers' perceptions of functional and emotional value.Drawing upon a survey of 382 Chinese consumers and employing structural equation modeling, the study reveals that all four attributes positively influence value perceptions.Still, emotional value has a stronger impact on consumers' willingness to pay a premium than functional value.Furthermore, the findings uncover distinct moderating effects of self-congruence: actual self-congruence amplifies the influence of functional value.In contrast, ideal self-congruence strengthens the impact of emotional value on willingness to pay a premium.These results highlight the nuanced psychological mechanisms by which collaboration branding works and extend selfcongruence theory into the domain of co-branded consumer goods.The study contributes to branding literature by clarifying how functional value and emotional value have different levels of influence on consumers' willingness to pay a premium-a phenomenon we refer to as "asymmetric value effects."Specifically, emotional value exerts a stronger effect than functional value in driving premium purchase intentions.Additionally, we propose a dual-pathway model that links value perceptions to identity alignment.Practically, the findings guide managers in designing collaboration strategies that align with consumers' self-concepts and optimize emotional engagement to justify premium pricing.Tailoring marketing communication based on actual versus ideal self-congruence can further enhance branding effectiveness.While providing practical guidance, managers should note that these insights are derived from a Chinese consumer context; therefore, applying them to other markets may require validation of their cross-cultural generalizability.