The Relationship Between News Reports And Brand Equity ——A Research Based On Network News Data And Semantic Network Analysis

Reading brand-related news is a process of interaction between customers and brands.It is also the process of information interaction between brand behavior,media reality and customer mindset.The reappearance of brand behavior in news reports constructs customer-based brand equity such as brand awareness and brand association,and influences enterprise-based brand equity such as market performance and financial value,thus builds a complete brand value chain.Therefore,the research on the influence of news reports on brand equity not only enrich the relevant theories of brand equity and communication effect,but also help enterprises to develop brand management plans and maintain media relations,as well as provide suggestions for media to conduct brand news communication activities effectively.This paper takes news big date as research material to research the content of brand news reports from the perspective of brand equity and analyzes the relationship between news reports and brand equity.The research process was divided into two stages.The overall situation of Chinese brand news reports was analyzed at the first stage.From the "China's 500 Most Valuable Brands" released by the World Brand Lab in 2018,45 brands in different industries were selected as samples,and 97285 headlines of these samples published in 2018 Baidu news were downloaded to analysis.The issues of each sample were extracted by semantic network analysis,and the issues of all samples were iteratively coded in combination with the coding theory of grounded theory to form an issue framework of brand news reports,which were verified by the reliability and validity test.Then,the relationship between news reports and brand equity were studied by regression analysis,where the brand equity value-added in 2018 as the dependent variable,the issue sentiment index,the report sentiment index and the report quantity as independent variables to conduct.Herein,issue sentiment index and report sentiment index refer to the content and sentiment of reports,respectively.The product category variable was introduced in the research on the relationship between news reports and brand equity at the second stage.30 fast moving consumer goods(FMCG)brands,30 durable consumer goods(DCG)brands,30 service brands,and 27 industrial product brands were selected as samples and 177130 headlines of Baidu news for these brands were downloaded.The sample source,processing method and variable measurement in this stage was same as the first stage,and the coding process directly used the classification results of the first stage as the coding basis.The research results include three parts:(1)An issue framework of brand news reports was obtained,which includes 9 first-level issues and 26 second-level issues,namely,production management(production system,technological innovation),product information(product function,product price),event marketing(new product launch,participation in exhibitions,brand sponsorship,philanthropy,other marketing activities),human resources(new recruitment,personnel change,leadership news,employee management),capital operations(mergers and acquisitions,investment and financing),organization cooperation(brand alliances,industrial cooperation,government cooperation),market competition(market expansion,market environment,competitive product comparison),stock market(stock basic situation,stock market fluctuation),brand development(brand performance,brand honor,brand planning).The framework extends and refines the previous research results.Besides the first-level issues of market competition,stock market,brand development,other first-level issues are common factors influencing brand equity.In addition,the issue proportion of event marketing(20.30%)and brand development(16.51%)rank first and second.(2)The analysis of the relationship between report content,report sentiment,report quantity and brand equity showed that,the issues of production management,product information,event marketing(new product launch),human resources(employee management,personnel change),brand development(brand honor)are positively related to brand equity,the issues of capital operations(mergers and acquisitions),cooperation models,market competition(competitive product comparison)are negatively related to brand equity,while the issues of stock market and other secondlevel issues are irrelevant to brand equity.The results also showed that positive reports have a positive correlation with brand equity,neutral reports have a negative correlation with brand equity and negative reports have no significant relationship with brand equity.In addition,there is a significant positive correlation between report quantity and brand equity.(3)The further analysis of product category found that,the issues of organization cooperation(industrial cooperation),neutral reports,report quantity are positively related to brand equity for FMCG brands.The issues of production management,human resources(employee management),organization cooperation(industrial cooperation),brand development(brand honor,brand planning),competitive product comparison,as well as report quantity are positively related to brand equity,while the issues of market competition(market expansion,market environment),personnel change are negatively related to brand equity for DCG brands.The issues of event marketing(philanthropy,other marketing activities),positive reports,report quantity are positively related to brand equity for service brands.Report content,report sentiment,report quantity has no significant relationship with brand equity for industrial products brands.Finally,this paper could be a broader support for brand value chain theory by using network news data.Then this paper comprehensively discusses the above research results and holds that,enterprises and media should realize that only effective news communication can promote brand development during the operation of market rules.Moreover,reports content with news value and related to customers' interests are more conducive to brand equity,and daily news releases have little effect on improving brand equity.However,excessive advertorials and product promotion links may increase customers' sense of advertisement invasion and damage brand equity.