The Effects Of Brand Association On Consumers' Acceptance Of Brand Extension: An Empirical Study

The research on brand equity first began at the 50th of last century. Though in the past two decades, the research on brand equity has become one of the focus points in marketing, the research on brand association is rare. As for now, most of the research relating to the effects of brand association on consumer behaviors is from a theoretical perspective without empirical analysis. There is only a little empirical research actually dealing with the relations between brand association and consumer response. That is brand association has an influence on consumer's willingness to pay price premium, purchase brand extensions and recommend the brand to others, etc. However these empirical analyses did not involve the different dimensions of brand association in them. Firstly, this paper analyzes the influence of different dimensions of brand association on the consumer's willingness to purchase brand extensions, Then considering consumer characteristics being one of the focus points of research now, the author chooses consumer motives as a moderating variable, That is to say when comes to consumers with different motives, whether there exists a discrepancy among brand association's influence on the purchasing of brand extensions.The author uses an empirical way to discuss the different dimensions of brand associations' influence on consumer's purchasing of brand extension products. Brand association is divided into 4 dimensions according to Spanish scholars A Belen & Rodolfo from a function perspective. they are guarantee association,social identification association,personal identification and status association. In this paper, the author does not only researched brand association's effects on consumers' buy of brand extensions, but also investigate as to comers with different consumption motives, whether there exists a discrepancy on brand association's effects on consumer. This is the innovation of the paper.On the basis of literature review and research framework, this paper put forward 6 hypotheses about brand association's effects on consumer's buying of brand extensions and the difference exists among different group of consumers. Here are the hypotheses: brand's guarantee/ social identification/personal identification/status association has a positive influence on consumer's purchasing of brand extension products. Guarantee/ status association's influence on the purchasing of brand extensions of consumer groups with different motives is different.The study selects 4 sports shoes brands as the stimuli product, and conduct a main survey to test the above hypotheses, using data obtained from students enrolled at Jilin University, Harbin Medical University and Harbin Industry and Technology University .By using Mat lab 7.0 and some statistical methods, the study finds out that all the hypotheses are supported except 2.brand's social identification and personal identification do not have a positive influence on consumer's purchasing of brand extensions.This study is quite meaningful. First and foremost, it indicates that brand's guarantee association and status association influence consumer's buying of brand extensions. Therefore, when the managers are considering extending a brand, they should pay special attention to these 2 dimensions. However, it doesn't mean the other 2 dimensions can be ignored.Secondly, this paper proves that when comes to consumers with different motives; there indeed exists a discrepancy of brand association's effects on the purchasing of brand extensions. The consumers of perfect motive group emphasize both guarantee association and status association. The high motive group thinks that status association is more important. However, both guarantee association and status association has a smaller effect on low motive group, as a result , the manager can construct the relative brand association according to consumer's specific motives. As to the low motive group, more measures such as advertising should be taken in order to improve their motives.Brand association is of great value to enterprises. the enterprises can carry out brand extension on the basis of a strong and positive association and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. But the strong and positive brand association is not built in one day .the enterprise should establish it gradually and patiently. Though there are limitations in this paper, the study to some degree has theoretical and practical value.