Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Abstract

Deregulation and increased market information have made competition fierce in today's market. Service marketers have sought to increase their competitive advantage by focusing on branding and social benefits to augment the functional benefits provided by the services they offer (Fock, Woo, and Hui, 2003). Financial services represent one such industry. Banks have, in recent decades, partnered with organizations with strong membership or supporter bases to create specialized products, including credit cards that are offered exclusively to various organizations. The primary goal of affinity marketing is to capitalize on the relationship between the affinity organization and its members for the promotion of the bank’s credit card business (Mekonnen and Harris, 2006).

According to Worthington and Horne (1996) and Worthington (2001), alumni and university affinity cards are some of the most typical and attractive kinds of credit card products. This paper aims to further our understanding of relationship marketing efforts in higher education by leveraging empirical data to respond to the broader question of how collegiate affinity partnerships have evolved over the past decade. It also looks at factors that have influenced the longevity of these partnerships and the characteristics of the organizations that have been able to maintain these partnerships. This study utilizes data published by the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau to examine how these affinity partnerships evolved from 2009 to 2020. It will explore collegiate affinity partnerships by size, type, region, and relationships between the longevity of those partnerships and university athletics.

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