| Since entering the New Era,major changes have taken place in China's market place,which are manifested in the following two points: First,the increase in consumption brought about by the increasing per capita disposable income has led people to pay more and more attention to the quality of products in consumer decision-making.The brand has become the target of national consumption.Second,the product life cycle brought about by the acceleration of technological progress is shortened,making the speed of product innovation and product structure adjustment a key factor in determining the survival of the company.Enterprises in this environment,if they want to gain long-term competitive advantage and realize the long-term base industry,they must strengthen their own brand construction on the one hand and establish a brand that consumers trust;On the other hand,to strengthen their own technology accumulation and speed up their own technology application,speed up the pace of product innovation and product structure adjustment.In this case,brand extension,which uses the name(logo)of the original brand to launch new products to achieve product innovation and product restructuring,has become desirable and protracted for companies that already have well-known brands.In fact,using the influence of the original brand to launch new products is a common practice for Chinese companies and even well-known companies in various regions of the world.For example,when the domestic brand Gree launches smart phone,the phone is crowned Gree's brand name;When the Maotai brand launched wine and beer,it also crowned the wine and beer with the brand name of Maotai;For another example,when the foreign brand Pierre Cardin launched the perfume,the perfume was crowned with the brand name of Pierre Cardin;When the Apple brand launched the iPod,the iPod was also crowned Apple's brand name.Although the practice of brand extension has not been poor in the practice of brand management,there are few successful brand extension practices.According to statistics from Nielsen Consulting,at the end of 2016 in American cosume market,companies that successfully launched new products using brand extension strategies accounted for less than 15 % of all companies that used brand strategies to launch new products.According to statistics from Beijing Famous Asset Management Company,at the end of 2017 in Chinese consume marketing,companies that successfully launched new products using brand extension strategies accounted for less than 4 % of all companies that used brand extension strategies to launch new products.Since the brand extension strategy is widely used when companies launch new products and companies often fail in brand extension strategies,what factors have led to the success of brand extension? How and how do these factors interact? It has become a topic of great concern to both the business community and the academic community.Although based on the cotegory theory,most of the existing studies believe that the degree of FIT between the extended product and the original brand has an important influence on the consumer's extended product attitude.The reason is that the degree of FIT between the extended product and the original brand indicates the existence of information between the two.Relation,This information correlation will make it easy for consumers to find extended products in the original brand's information Association,resulting in a halo effect and promoting consumers to transfer their feelings about the original brand to extended products.Moreover,according to the commonality of different dimensions between the extended product and the original brand,the FIT is divided into two types: Exemplar FIT and Prototype FIT.However,the existing research still does not answer the following three questions well: First,the FIT between the extended product and the original brand through what intermediary factors affect the consumer's attitude towards extended the product.Second,what is the moderator for the effect of Exemplar and Prototype FIT on consumer extended product attitudes? Third,what is the moderator for the impact of high and low FIT on consumer extended product attitudes? These are the problems that need to be combed,analyzed,verified and solved in this study.Based on the above three main issues,this paper analyzes the core issue of "mechanism of FIT on extended product attitude" from the perspective of consumers.It mainly includes seven parts: First,it proposes research problems based on case analysis.To define the content,theoretical and practical significance and method of this study,so as to establish the overall research framework of the paper;The second is to collect and review the literature and the latest progress of the extended product attitude,and to summarize and refine the views and put forward personal opinions and research ideas based on the theme of this research.Third,on the basis of the above comprehensive arrangement,the paper puts forward the "mechanism model of the influence of FIT on the attitude of extended products" and puts forward the relevant research assumptions of the main effect,intermediary effect and regulatory effect.Fourth,following the strict scale design procedure,the brand concept fluency scale was independently developed in the brand extension field,and a small sample pre-survey was conducted on 101 students and 91 employees of the general staff by means of questionnaires.The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were tested.The fifth is the pre-test,combining the interview study with the questionnaire survey study.Based on the collection of 312 data,the experimental situational materials suitable for formal experimental research are determined,and the foundation for the formal experiment of the sixth part is consolidated.Sixth,on the basis of the above steps,two formal experiments were conducted and relevant data were collected for 461 students in school.At the same time,two formal experiments were conducted and relevant data were collected for 428 employees of ordinary companies.On this basis,the data was comprehensively collated.The analysis methods of variance analysis,covariance analysis and regression analysis are used to test the research model and all the research assumptions presented in this paper.On the basis of the above empirical analysis,this paper summarizes the relevant conclusions of this study and puts forward management suggestions and research prospects.The main findings of this study are as follows:First,the effect of brand fluency on extended product attitudes does exist.Based on conceptual fluency theory and experimental research,this paper finds that brand fluency,a subjective psychological variable that reflects consumers 'ability to use the same symbol to represent the ease of extending products and original brands,can indeed affect consumers' attitudes toward extended products,and the concept of brand fluency plays the role of a complete intermediary between Fit and consumer's extended product attitude.That is,FIT is through the concept of brand fluency bridge to influence the consumer's attitude to extend the product;Second,if consumers classify the original brand as a functional concept,consumers use the product exemplar of the original brand as an information clue to construct the information memory and information storage of the original brand,and rely on information that reflects the product exemplar.For example,product function,performance,and quality,to activate their original brand information Association,that is,consumer information association to the brand presents the core information of product exempalr,and the information representing product exemplar is the feature of the information node.Therefore,at this time,the extended product should maintain a higher similarity with the original brand in the product exemplar properties,that is,maintain a higher Exemplar FIT with the original brand,so that consumers can successfully find the extended product in the original brand information Association.Information,Can easily use the same symbol to characterize the extended product and the original brand,and therefore have a positive attitude toward the extended product;Third,if consumers classify the original brand as a symbolic concept,consumers use the symbolic attributes and symbolic meanings of the original brand as information clues to construct the information memory and information storage of the original brand,and rely on information that reflects brand symbolic attributes and symbolism.For example,the psychological reference group of the brand,the social attributes of the brand,etc.to stimulate the original brand's information Association,that is,the consumer's association to the brand presents the brand symbol attribute as the core information,and the information representing the brand symbol attribute as the characteristics of the association node.Therefore,at this time,the extended product should maintain a higher inheritance with the original brand in the symbol attributes,that is,maintain a higher Prototype FIT with the original brand,so that consumers can successfully find information about the extended product in the original brand information Association.,Can more easily use the same symbol to characterize the extended product and the original brand,and therefore have a positive attitude toward the extended product.Fourth,if consumers present local characteristics of the original brand's cognitive structure,then this indicates that consumers use only one aspect of the brand's information(product exemplar or brand symbol)as information clues to construct information memory and information storage for the original brand.,That is,the consumer's information association with the brand only focuses on one aspect of the content.At this point,in addition to this information,it is difficult for consumers to associate with the original brand through other types of new information.In this case,the extended product can only maintain a high degree of consistency with the original brand's attributes in this area and have attribute information in this area,so that consumers can successfully find information about the extended product in the original brand's information Association.Can more easily use the same symbol to characterize the extended product and the original brand,and therefore have a positive attitude toward the extended product.Fifth,if the consumer's cognitive structure of the original brand presents an global feature,then this indicates that consumers will use multiple information as information clues to construct the storage and memory structure of the original brand.That is,the consumer's information association with the brand is not limited to one aspect in content,but is widely divergent in many aspects.In this case,many types of information can make it easier for consumers to associate with the original brand.Therefore,at this time,whether the extended product is highly consistent with the information of the original brand in a certain aspect and whether it has a convenient attribute information of the original brand has no significant impact on whether consumers can find the information of the extended product in the information association of the original brand.Therefore,there is no significant influence on whether consumers can easily use the same symbol to represent extended products and original brands,and thus have no significant impact on the production of positive extended product attitudes.Compared with the existing research results,this study has further developed and enriched the theory of the formation of extended product attitudes.The innovation points are mainly reflected in four aspects:First,cognitive fluency theory is used to reveal the intermediary factors that affect the attitude of extended products.Although many researches have been done in the field of influencing factors of extended product attitude,few scholars have conducted in-depth research on the intermediary factors affecting consumer extended product attitude.This paper introduces the theory of cognitive fluency,and believes that the reason why FIT can affect the consumer's extended product attitude is because under certain conditions,FIT makes consumers form a subjective experience of brand concept fluency.That is,FIT is not the direct cause of the formation of consumer extended product attitudes.Under certain circumstances,the brand concept fluency induced by FIT is the direct reason that affects the consumer's extended product attitude.This study,for the first time,uncovers the theoretical black box of the influence of FIT on the consumer's extended product attitude,theoretically finds a bridge between grafting FIT and consumer extended product attitude,and makes up for the gap in the previous research in this area.Secondly,developing the brand concept fluency scale in the field of brand extension research,using experimental methods to verify the role of brand concept fluency in the formation of extended product attitudes.Although the concept of fluency has been widely used in the study of consumer behavior,for example,some scholars have applied it to consumer spending decisions,investment decisions,and product purchase decisions.However,few scholars have introduced it into the study of the influence factors of extended product attitudes,and no one has developed a concept fluency scale suitable for brand extension research.Following the scientific steps of scale design,this paper has developed a brand concept fluency scale with six dimensions,and proved its important role in the formation of consumer extended product attitudes.This has consolidated the theoretical foundation for the subsequent relevant empirical and case studies.Thirdly,the concept characterization theory is used to reveal the boundary conditions of the influence of exemplar and prototype FIT on the consumer's extended product attitude.The current research only emphasizes the effect of exemplar and prototype FIT on the consumer's extended product attitude,but does not explore the boundary conditions of this effect.This paper introduces the concept representation theory,and believes that for functional concept brands,consumers mainly use product exemplar as attribute information to form association with the original brand.Therefore,the exemplar FIT is more likely to affect consumers 'extended product attitude.For symbolic concept brands,consumers mainly use brand symbol as attribute information to form associations with the original brand,so the prototype FIT is more likely to affect the consumer's extended product attitude,which has enriched and developed the existing extended product attitude formation model.Fourth,the cognitive structure theory is used to reveal the conditions for the success of long-distance(cross-border)brand extension.There is no doubt that the existing research on brand extension,most of the emphasis on the company's brand extension strategy to meet the requirements of FIT can obtain positive attitude of consumers.This paper introduces the theory of cognitive structure,and believes that for the original brand whose cognitive structure is local,consumers only form association content with the attribute information of a certain aspect.Therefore,whether or not to meet the requirements of FIT has a very important impact on the consumer's extended product attitude;For a brand whose cognitive structure is characterized by an overall type,consumers exhibit multi-faceted and divergent characteristics of the original brand's associative content.Therefore,whether or not meeting the requirements of FIT has no significant impact on the consumer's attitude towards extending products.This also enriched and developed the existing extended product attitude formation model.The research conclusion of this paper has the following guiding significance for corporate brand extension practice: First,the company's brand extension strategy choice should abandon the practice of dimensional FIT as a theoretical tool,and should pay attention to the choice of established brand extension strategy.Can consumers easily use the same symbol to represent the extended product and the original brand;Second,if the existing brand belongs to the functional concept,then the company must pay attention to the high FIT between the extended product and the original brand in the product exemplar,and do not extend the brand to the category farther away from the original product category.The brand should be extended to the original brand product category similar to the category,to take the original brand product attributes as a reference to the road of concentric diversification of cross-border extension;Third,if the existing brand is a symbolic concept of the brand,then the company must pay attention to the extension of the product and the original brand in the brand prototype match.That is,do not extend new products to products that are closer to the original business of the original brand and can not reflect the brand symbol attributes and symbolic meanings.Instead,it is necessary to extend the product to some product categories that can truly reflect the core connotation of the original brand,and take the road of horizontal diversification based on the original brand symbol attributes.Fourth,Chinese companies should value the abstract symbolic attributes and brand symbolic meanings of consumers,and strive to transform brands from specific product categories to abstract symbolic attributes and symbolic meanings in consumer cognition.On this basis,we seek the true meaning of product structure upgrade and product upgrade extension road;Fifth,Chinese companies need to broaden the structure of brands in consumer perception,so that consumers can have more and higher levels of information content to form brand associations,thus facilitating the cross-border expansion of companies. |
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