The Impact Of Cross-gender Brand Extension On Brand Love

A brand is often inlaid with specific gender traits to demonstrate characteristics that are identical with certain consumer group.However,gender preference,the trait goes along with the brand,is a limitation itself and hinders the expansion of brand equity because it makes the brand only accessible to particular markets.In order to overcome the shortcomings,enterprises always resort to cross-gender brand extensions.On one hand,enterprises can gain benefits from the extension strategy.One the other hand,improper extensions may lead to great differences in gender traits between parent brand products and extended products,hence,the consumers are dubious about the brand positioning and the core parent brand associations are weakened.As a result,many enterprises ended in failure in terms of cross-gender brand extensions.As the transfer of affection theory shows,consumers' cognition and emotion towards the parent brand can be transferred to the extended brand in direct or indirect ways.Based on this,it is speculated that contributions will be made to the success of cross-gender brands,if the consumers' love towards parent brands is transferred to extended brands and long-term intimacy is built between consumers and extended brand products.Can cross-gender brand extensions make consumers preferable to extended products?This is a question worth exploring.Previous research has extensively and thoroughly explored various factors that have impact on brand extensions,such as perceived fit,parent brand quality and consumers' attitudes to parent brand.Perceived fit,in the midst of these factors,is the decisive role in brand extensions.This study explores the influence that cross-gender brand extensions,with high perceived fit and low perceived fit,attach to brand love.In addition,the existing research is rare in case of cross-gender brand extensions.Research,on evaluation of consumers' emotion and attitudes to cross-gender brand extensions,is mainly confined to brand trust,brand loyalty and so on.Study has not yet been seen on how cross-gender brand extensions influence brand love,consumers'supreme emotion to a brand.Therefore,this study bases on the perspective of consumers,constructs a theoretical model of the impact of cross-gender brand extensions on brand love,discusses the relationship between the two elements and tries to explain the influential mechanism of how the former works on the latter.First of all,adopting the latter method and deep interviews,the study determines the dimensions of brand love scale,test the the questionnaire with exploratory factor analysis(EFA)and confirmatory factor analysis(CFA),and get three dimensions of brand love:brand attachment?brand passion?brand commitment and loyalty?according to research needs,this study has developed a localized brand love scale.Secondly,hypotheses are put forward on account of theoretical deduction and a conceptual model is constructed about the impact of cross-gender brand extensions on brand love.Thirdly,two research directions,feminization extended to masculinity and vice versa,have been divided according to the directions occur in cross-gender brand extensions,and an experimental design has been carried on.In each research direction,four experimental groups are further classified in the light of gender extension directions,perceived fit and product types.Four types of gender roles are ensured to appear in every experimental group while the gender roles of consumers serve as manipulative variables.By contrast tests,the change of consumers' brand love is measured before and after cross-gender brand extensions,in order to verify the relationship between extensions and brand love.The test also shows the impact of perceived fit in extensions on brand love,being direct or indirect effect.What's more,the study explores the regulation effect that different product types and gender roles have on perceived fit and extended brand love.Data,acquired through questionnaire surveys,is quantified by SPSS and AMOS software to validate theoretical model and research hypotheses.The empirical study found the following conclusions:(1)Cross-gender brand extensions will reduce the brand love of consumers,whenever it is high perceived fit or low perceived fit.Therefore,the consumers' brand love can barely be transferred to the extended brands when the extension strategy is employed.(2)Perceived fit,in cross-gender brand extensions,has not only direct effect on consumers' brand love to extended brands,but also indirect effect on consumers' brand love,through intervening variables such as brand trust and perceived risk.The higher the perceived fit is,the more the consumers' brand love and trust degree are to the extended brands.(3)Product types work as a regulatory role in perceived fit and brand love to extended brands.Compared to functional products,symbolic products have a greater impact on relationship between the perceived fit and the extended brand love.(4)The consumer's gender role also serves as a regulatory role on relationship between the perceived fit and the extended brand love.Compared with other gender roles of consumers,bisexuality plays a more significant role in the adjustment between the two.Furthermore,the study found that the number and proportion of single gender roles,namely masculinized and feminized consumer,were larger than those of bi-sexualized and gender-undifferentiated individuals.This is probably related to the participants in the experiment,they are senior college students and most of them are girls.As studies show,with the grades of the students going up,girls' psychological gender will gradually become more and more close to the biological sex.According to the research results,the paper presents the suggestions for the enterprise that is to implement cross-gender brand extensions strategy and improve consumers' brand love:(1)Enterprises should improve the perceived fit between parent brand and extended brands.It is more likely to rise consumers' positive associates with extended brands when high perceived fit is adopted.Hence,consumers are tend to bring their brand love to extended products.(2)Various marketing strategies(Such as giving chances of brand experiences to consumers?building online communities of brand and so on)can be used to strengthen consumers' brand trust and reduce perceived risk,so as to enhance consumers' brand love to extended brands.(3)In the practice of cross-gender brand extensions,symbolic products are more inclined to arouse consumers' awakening of identical self-concept.Enterprises should make efforts to form a high degree of consistency between the brand image and consumers' ideal ego,and to lead a long-term stable relationship between them.(4)In the implement of cross-gender extension strategy,the enterprise has to consider not only the gender traits embodied in products and brands,but also the appropriate target market combining with consumers' gender roles.Consumers with bi-sexual traits have better capacity to accept cross-gender extensions than consumers in other gender roles.Therefore,it is imperative to strive for the approval and support from this group.Cross-Gender Brand Extension is not as common,and Brand Love is a new frontier;and the study of combining the two has not yet been seen.To this extent,Theoretically,this study,with a certain degree of innovation in theory,enriches the theory of brand extension and brand love.Practically,this study not only helps enterprises realize the importance to establish intimate ties between brands and customers,but also help customers set up rational relationships with brands.In addition,due to the limitations of time,academic ability,samples and other uncontrollable factors in the experiment,it may lead to conclusions that are different from conclusions in previous researches or situations where promotion performance is rather poor.It needs deeper and further research on the relationship between cross-gender brand extensions and brand love.Empirical studies are also needed to verify the hypothesis.This research serves as a modest spur to induce more researchers to develop research models from various perspectives and draw influential conclusions.So it can shed light on the practice of cross-gender extensions in enterprises' brand management.