Comparative Study On Effect Of Rumor On Its Maker’s And Victim’s Brand Image

Public Relations have developed in China for less than30years. It’s still notvery professional and standard enough. Therefore it’s faced up with so manyproblems in practice. Besides that, internet and deficiency of practitioner’squality add weight to this phenomenon. Rumor is one of these problems. It’s notonly about individual and part of the society. Actually rumor is related to a lot ofcompanies and sometimes it’s communicated by some companies. Somecompanies are attackers but not only victims of rumor. And attackers andvictims may be exposed to the public in the meantime. So it’s quite worthresearching the effect of rumor to the attacker and the victim.Based on this background, I do this research by quantitative research after alot paper reading. This research is about the negative impact on the brand imageof both attacker and victim. This research is taken by experiment. It’s a3by3experiment. It’s divided by2dimensions include the market position and theprocessing strategy.This research has found5important findings. In case of the source of therumor is known. Firstly, communicating rumor will damage communicator’sbrand image and enhance the victim’s brand image. Secondly, market positionwill influence the positive or negative effect on brand image. Thirdly, processingstrategy will influence this image influence. After that, initial brand image willinfluence both sides’ brand image. Finally, the evaluation of severity willinfluence brand image.