The Moderating Role And Relevant Mechanism Analysis Of Information Involvement And Competition Differentiation

Brand extension is a popular marketing strategy for a company.Using anestablished brand name to the new product,it will pass the favorable informationthrough core brand to the new product. It is used very often for a company.Brand extension strategy is also a hot issue in academic field, but most of theresearches examine the influence of related factors through static perspective, ignoringsome dynamic factors in real decision-making situation, so it makes the researchconclusion too idealistic, apart from the practice.From the perspective of consumer behavior and extension features, this paperextract two situational variables: Information Involvement(refers to consumers’different concern to information) and Differentiation (if there is a differentiationadvantage for the new product comparing with its competitors).InformationInvolvement index is divided into2classes(high and low);Differentiation index isdivided into3classes(no competition; competition with no differentiation; competitionwith differentiation);Using Nike as the core brand，Nike sportswear、Nike sport MP3、NIKE notebook computer as the extension product,this paper divide the Similarity indexinto3classes(high、medium、low).Based on this,This paper form18experimentalgroups representing different decision-making situations,We receive a total of540validquestionnaires of students with30samples in each group. This paper explores themoderating role of Involvement and Differentiation through comparing with differentexperimental groups. The relevant mechanism analysis for the two factors is alsoinvolved.The conclusions are as follows:①Information involvement hasa moderating effect to the relative importances ofthe Cognitive Quality and Similarity. The relative position of the importance ofsimilarity and the cognitive quality may change with the involvement. The impact ofcognitive quality may be more decisive when involvement is low, whereas the impact ofsimilarity more decisive when involvement is high.②Competition information hasa moderating effect to the relative importances ofCognitive Quality and Similarity only when involvement is high. The relevantcompetitive information in the new product field will strengthen the effects of cognitivequality, and weakens the effects of similarity. ③In low involvement situation,competition situations in the new product fieldwill not adjust the relationship between the Similarity index and Extension EvaluationIndex. For the consumers with low involvement, whether there has competitioninformation or whether the information shows the new product has differentiationadvantages, the more similar between the core brand and extension product, the betterevaluation the consumers make.The similarity index and the evaluation of the extensionproduct appears a linear relationship.④In high involvement situation, Competition situation in new product field willadjust the relationship between the Similarity index and Extension Evaluation index.Specifically: if we don’t consider the competition factors, the consumer’s informationprocessing ability mainly focus on the recognition of similarity, they will make a betterevaluation to the moderately similar extension product and the inverted U patternappears between the Similarity and the Extension Evaluation; When the competitioninformation shows that the new product has no differentiation advantages comparingwith its competitors, the consumers will make a better evaluation to the moderatelysimilar extension product and an inverted U pattern appears between the Similarity andthe Extension Evaluation; When the competitive information prompt the extensionproduct has differentiation advantages comparing with its competitors, the consumerswill concentrate in the comparison of extension products and its competitors, they willmake a better evaluation to the most similar extension product and a positive linearrelationship appears between the Similarity and the Extension Evaluation.⑤Mechanism analyzing shows that:When the involvement is low, the consumerstend to transfer their effective emotions from the core brand to the extension, theprocessing way conforms to Emotion Transfer Model; When involvement is high, theconsumers will make a thorough processing for information,the processing wayconforms to Elaboration Process Model.