The Mechanism Of Brand Personality Dimensions On Consumers' Attitude To Brand Extension

Along with the development of the Chinese economy, Chinese consumers have stronger purchasing power and face more choices, which leads to the era of brand consumption. There are two main lines of brand research, which are brand extension study and brand personality study. The former emphasizes on brand economies of scale, when the latter emphasizes on spiritual demand of the brand. In the context of the background, both of them have high research value, but there are very few researchers who combined the two together.This study introduces "Humanlity" and "Trendiness", which are the two key dimensions of the brand personality into the process of brand extension formation as two independent variables. The different mechanism of the two dimensions of brand personality on consumers' attitude to brand extension will be inspected with a parent brand selling utilitarian-concept products and another parent brand selling hedonic-concept products. The author hopes to find the proper strategy of brand personality for different brands. The conclusions will be valuable for the development of brand diversification.This study uses experimental method, and the samples are all students. The data is analysed by SPSS 15.0, includes descriptive statistical analysis, reliability testing, paired-samples T-test and independent sample T-test. The research conclusion shows: (1) No matter the original category is utilitarian-concept or hedonic-concept, "Trendiness" brand personality always has positive effect on upward extension. Compared with "Humanlity", "Trendiness" brand personality has the significant more positive effect on upward extension; (2) If the original category is utilitarian-concept, "Humanlity" brand personality has positive effect on downward extension. Compared with "Trendiness", "Humanlity" brand personality has the significant more positive effect on downward extension; (3) If the original category is utilitarian-concept, no matter the parent brand extends to utilitarian-concept or hedonic-concept category, "Humanlity" brand personality always leads to higher brand extension evaluation than "Trendiness" brand personality does; (4) If the original category is hedonic-concept, when the parent brand extends to hedonic-concept category, "Trendiness" brand personality leads to higher brand extension evaluation than "Humanlity" brand personality does.This study enriches the brand extension theory and brand personality theory, and provides the practice direction of how to enhance the brand extension force.