The Impact Of Brand Concept On Brand Extension Evaluation

Consumers’ attitude towards brand extension determines the success or failure of enterprises to some extent.Therefore,there are endless researches on consumer brand psychology,and the research on consumer brand extension evaluation is the next valuable branch of this discipline.Elasticity refers to the ability of a brand to extend to far product categories when it carries out extension strategy.Some studies have shown that the elasticity of the concept of symbolic brand is greater than that of functional brand.However,previous studies have concluded that the ecological validity needs to be verified by using products covering fewer industries as experimental materials.Therefore,in study 1,experimental materials from different industries are added to explore whether this conclusion is stable,and whether this conclusion is limited to extended products that can successfully inherit the symbolic attributes of the parent brand and the mechanism of information processing fluency.Previous studies focused on matching from the perspective of advertising appeal to obtain higher extended evaluation,while no researchers discussed the changes of brand concept from the perspective of slogan appeal to affect consumer evaluation.Therefore,study two explores whether brand concept can be shaped in the minds of consumers through brand slogan,so as to make it easier to accept mismatched new products.The first study explores the influence of brand concept on brand extension evaluation,including two small experiments.In experiment 1a,a mixed experiment design of 2(brand concept: functional/symbolic)×2(perceived fit: high/low)was adopted,with brand extension evaluation as the dependent variable.A total of 54 subjects aged 18-30 were recruited to participate in the experiment using stimuluscognitive-response model.Real brand information was randomly presented and scored.In experiment 1b,2(brand concept: functional/symbolic)×2(perceived fit: high/low)×2(truth: high/low)was used to design 8 groups of questionnaires using virtual brand information and collect data from 213 subjects.The results showed that(1a)when the perceived fit was low,the extension evaluation of symbolic conceptual brands was higher than that of functional conceptual brands;When the perceived fit is high,there is no significant difference between the extended evaluation of symbolic conceptual brand and functional conceptual brand.(1b)Compared with symbolic brands,perceived fit has a greater impact on brand extension evaluation of functional brands;Compared with functional brands,authenticity has a greater impact on brand extension evaluation of functional brands,and information processing fluency plays an intermediary role.The second study explores whether the brand concept can be changed by strengthening the brand slogan.A mixed experimental design of 2(brand concept:functional type/symbolic type)×2(brand slogan appeal: informational type/emotional type)was adopted,and the dependent variable was brand extension evaluation.A total of 263 subjects were collected.In order to prove the moderating effect of brand slogan appeal on brand concept and extension evaluation,repeated measurement analysis of variance test results showed that: for products with low authenticity and high fit of symbolic concept brand extension,informational slogan appeal(vs affective)had higher brand extension evaluation.For functional concept brand extension to products with low fit and high authenticity,emotional slogan appeal(vs emotional)brand extension evaluation is higher.The main conclusions of the two research results are as follows:(1)In different industries,it can still be concluded that symbolic brands are more resilient.However,it has a certain range of application.Although symbolic brands can be successfully extended to products with low fit degree,they can only be classified successfully if they conform to high authenticity degree.(2)Brand slogan appeals play a regulating role between brand concept and extended evaluation.Brand slogan can change consumers’ cognition of brand concept,so that extended products can be more smoothly incorporated into the parent brand and more positive extended evaluation can be obtained.This paper has enriched the research of brand extension and provided guidance for enterprises to find their own positioning and how to construct brand concept.