| In recent years,along with the rapid economic development,the competition in the market has become more and more intense.At the same time,advances in science and technology have made the life cycle of products in the market increasingly shorter.Faced with such a tough business environment,companies trying to build new brands to enter the market and thus launch new products will face many challenges.To overcome these difficulties,many companies use brand extensions as an important strategy to launch new products or services.Consumer-brand relationships have received much scholarly attention as one of the key factors influencing the success of brand extensions.At present,there are still some deficiencies in the research on the impact of consumer-brand relationship on brand extension.First of all,although scholars have explored a variety of different consumer-brand relationships and explored their impact on brand extension,there is a lack of analysis of the differences and the main role of the three main dimensions of consumer-brand relationship(cognition,emotion,behavior)in influencing brand extension from a holistic perspective.Secondly,in terms of the factors affecting the success of brand extension,the strength of consumer-brand relationship has always been valued by researchers.Few literatures explore their impact on brand extension evaluation from the perspective of brand relationship types(communal vs.exchanged).This paper has carried out two studies to improve and solve these problems.This study examines the impact of consumer-brand relationships on brand extension performance.Although the existing literature has widely studied this topic,the conclusions are still somewhat divergent.This study proposes a conceptual model that considers various contextual factors from the perspective of brand relationship management and conduct a meta-analysis of the correlations between 108 consumerbrand relationships and brand extension performance from 39 independent samples of35 empirical studies.The results of the meta-analysis demonstrate the moderating effects of contextual factors on the relationship between consumer-brand relationships and brand extension performance.The results show that emotional and cognitive connections between consumers and brands can indirectly improve brand extension financial performance by increasing perceived brand extension quality.Conversely,behavioral connection can directly improve brand extension financial performance or indirectly affect financial performance through brand extension attitudes.Moreover,consumer-brand relationships have a better impact on brand extension performance among developed(vs.emerging countries),high-tech(vs.low-tech)brands and holistic(vs.analytic)consumers.In addition,to further explore the potential mechanisms of consumer-brand relationships influence on brand extension.Based on brand relationship theory,this study examines how brand extension evaluation is influenced by two types of consumer-brand relationships: an exchange brand relationship that focuses on product quality and value,versus a communal brand relationship that focuses on emotional connection with consumers.Through three empirical studies,this paper demonstrates that there is no significant difference in the effect of brand relationship types on high-fit extension,but that communal(vs.exchange)consumer-brand relationships lead to a more favorable evaluation of low-fit extension.In addition,we find a serial mediating effect of self-brand affinity and feelings of trust.Specifically,communal(vs.exchange)brand relationship leads to stronger self-brand affinity and enhanced consumers’ feelings of trust,thereby improving the evaluation of low fit extension.In summary,there are two main innovations in this thesis compared to previous studies.First,based on the perspective of consumer-brand relationship management,this thesis proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework on when and how consumer-brand relationships influence brand extension performance,and validates the model by means of meta-analysis and path analysis.Second,this thesis identifies the type of consumer-brand relationship(shared and exchange)as a new key factor for brand extension success based on relationship specification theory.The thesis investigates the moderating role of brand extension fit in the influence of consumerbrand relationship type on brand extension evaluation and further identifies the chain mediating role of self-brand affinity and trust.The analysis shows that in addition to the closeness of the relationship,the different types of consumer-brand relationships are also key to brand extension evaluation.These findings provide a new research perspective in the field of consumer-brand relationships as well as brand extensions. |
