Study On The Brand Congestion In Domestic Car Market And Its Influence On The Enterprise's Brand-Management Mode

China's auto sales have exceeded ten million annually; meanwhile China has become the world's automobile production and sales superpower nowadays. With the rapid development of automobile industry, many companies began to implement multi-brand strategy; Number of brands from a few in the early days has increased to 180s currently. With the brands continual expansion, the brand "crowded" phenomenon appears in the car market. Crowded, overlapping is a waste of resources; this is related to the brand input Efficiency.Domestic and foreign scholars have done a lot of research on the brand, many brand theories is proposed, such as the Brand symbol theory, Brand emotion theory, Brand Image theory, Brand Character theory, Brand Positioning theory, Brand Culture theory, Brand Equity theory and Brand ecology theory etc. The study on brand management has experience a process from simple to complex, from the tactical management to the strategic management. The study on brand value has realized a period of from the product value to the brand value; from the brand intrinsic value (brand equity) to the brand external value (the brand's competitiveness). The current study focused on the brand itself primarily on the brand's nature and character, and rarely on the brand input efficiency.Therefore, a new concept of Brand Congestion will be put forward to from a view of the brand input efficiency to evaluate a company's the brand input and the brand management effectiveness in the market. Based on the analysis of brand congestion influence factors and affecting mechanism, this paper will establish a brand congestion evaluation index system and its measure model. Finally, the relation models between the brand management models and the brand congestion levels will be built, under the empirical research, to guide corporate brand management decisions.Congestion exists in every area of social and economic lives. The substance source of congestion is the density, under the interaction among the density, the situational factors and the personal characteristics, then through the person's cognitive mechanisms and physiological mechanisms, a stress status aroused its called congestion. Congestion generates a negative impact on people's psychological, behavioral, and work. The Resource is the sum of all elements from social and economic activities, resource Allocation is a choice making under the comparation among resources distributed in a various purposes. Because of the scarcity of resources, there is an appropriate distribution in resource allocation activities. No matter how to distribute resources, there will be resource allocation efficiency. The resource allocation inefficiency during the resources distribution process is called a kind of congestion phenomenon.Brand as a kind of resources has both spiritual and material properties, so there will also be the congestion phenomenon in brands. Brand congestion reflects the matching relations between the brands and the market capacities. The brand congestion reflects the brand density in a market from the brand material property point of view, Brand density is the number of brands exists in a given market. The more number of brands exists in specific market the higher level of brand congestion normally; on the contrary, the less number of brands exists in specific market the lower brand congestion level. Brand Congestion reflects the brand owner's subjective perception about brand's competitive status in a market; it is impacted by the number of brands, the number of competitors, the competitive situation, and the brand power of itself. The awareness of congestion changes by the perception to the competition situations, the Brand Congestion will be weak when your brand is strong in the competition market, the Brand Congestion will be enhanced on the contrary. As a kind of resources, the resource allocation congestion phenomenon will also be happened on brands. Brand Congestion is said to be present when increases in the number of brands, with the brands are increased to a certain extent, result in the sales volume reductions.Firstly, this paper studies the brand congestion situation on car company's production brands. In order to evaluate the brand congestion, a 21-person team was formed which comes from automotive companies, consulting firms and industry administration sections. After the analysis of brand congestion influence factors and affecting mechanism at the macro economy marketing and the enterprise point of view, the brand congestion evaluation index was established this contains 20 evaluation factors. The expert team selects 4 level-1 and 10 level-2 factors from the 20s to form a brand congestion evaluation index system by the use of Delphi method. After that, the congestion evaluation index weight was determined by the use of analytic hierarchy process, the brand congestion measure model was finally established in this paper.Secondly, from the enterprise perspective, this paper has evaluated the product brands congestions of different sales regions, different product grades, different companies, and different periods by use of brand congestion measure model. The brand congestion evaluation results of the case brands is consistent with the brand's performance in the market, this proves that the brand congestion measure model is effectiveness. Through the evaluation of the brand Congestion, it will help car companies to know the brand congestion conditions of its all brands in the market; it will help companies to learn the brand competition status in regional market, it will also help companies to compare the brand competition situations from different products grade. From the components of brand congestion index system, Brand Congestion reflects the brand launch effectiveness in the market, reflects the brand competitive situation. Brand congestion measure model is a practical and an effective tool for car companies to run brand and manage brand.Thirdly, this paper summarized the types and features of brand management model under the analysis of brand management status about China's car companies. Brand management models primarily come from five aspects, such as brand sources, brand structures, brand relationships, brand management methods, and brand regions. Through the empirical research, we find the nonlinear correlation between the brand congestions and the brand management models in these five aspects. According to the degree of brand congestion, the brand congestions can be divided into A, B, C, D, E five levels from weak to strong, a specific brand Congestion level exist an optimal brand management model to match. When the brand congestion is in level A, the optimal brand management model should be individual brand mode, at this point, it will be helpful to build up brand and take the brand advantage in the relax market environment. When the brand congestion is in level B, the optimal brand management model should be homogeneous competitive brand mode, when providing more choices to customs; the company will increase its market share. When the brand congestion is in level C, the optimal brand management model should be competitive complement brand mode; the company will occupy the market sufficiently by use of the weak brands competition, while product differentiation will prevent strong competition between brands. When the brand congestion is in level D, the optimal brand management model should be complementary competition brand mode; the company will win customers in the different segments through product separation, while this will enhance the brand's market share by some crossover between products. When the brand congestion is in level E, the optimal brand management model should be Independent complement brand mode; each brand exists independently, they are complementary of each other, there is no competition and cross between brands.Finally, based on this research some management suggestions have been raised to the enterprises. First, Car Company should attach importance to the brand congestion, pay close attention to all of their products'brand congestions, and build brand Congestion warning system. Second, based on the state of brand congestions, Car Company should set down business strategies accordingly, take advantage of any favorable opportunity to seek rapid development, and then obtain the maximum benefit. Third, Car Company can make use of brand congestion state distributions and brand relationship strategy distributions to make brand management strategy and adjust corporate brand management mode dynamically.In this paper, based on the brand theory and the congestion theory, a new concept about brand congestion is developed. Brand congestion is a new perspective on brand studies; this will enrich the brand management and contribute to the management theory. The Brand Congestion evaluation index system and the measure model built on China's car market will laid the foundation and methods for the later brand congestion studies. These brand congestion evaluation results on China's car market will be helpful to the development of industrial policy and industry development plan in China's automotive industry.