The Research Of The Mediating Effects Of Brand Relationship Quality On The Relationship Between Brand Reputation And Attribution

Blame attributions are important from a marketing perspective because they form the basis of consumers'brand judgments and behavior. The studies of influence factors have found that blame attribution can be influenced by information, prior beliefs and motivation. Yet there is little research on the impact of brand reputation on attribution.However, Dawar and Pillutla (2000) have found that companies about which consumers had weak prior expectations based on accumulated experience with the company, were barely able to maintain brand equity after a product-harm crisis, even if they responded positively and proactively to remedy the harm.. And brand reputation is based on the prior experience. so it's important to research the impact of brand reputation on blame attribution.Based on the review of the literature, this study form the theory model about the impact of brand reputation on blame attribution,taking brand relationship quality as mediating factor. Subsequently, the study explored interactions predicted by the framework under controlled laboratory conditions. We controlled the brand reputation, tested the change of brand reputation quality and blame attribution under laboratory conditions. The results showed that brand reputation have impact on blame attribution through the brand reputation quality under a product harm-crisis. The finding suggest that a positive brand reputation leads to strong brand reputation quality,and the locus of the crisis will be perceived as external, the crisis event will be perceived as unstable, uncontrollable. While a negative brand reputation leads to weak brand reputation quality, and the locus of crisis will be perceived as internal, the crisis event will be perceived as stable, controllable.Foreign scholars use the attribution theory of consumer psychology, the crisis response, because in such unusual situations, the most common customers are attributed to cognitive processes, the customer will always occur spontaneously from the source, stability, controllability and the formation of the three dimensions of attribution of events, to condemn (Folkes,1984; Folkes & Kotsos,1986). This is attributed to the market research is very important, because it is the formation of judgments and consumer behavior consumer brand based, business to consumer why and how the reaction to the crisis awareness and control, will help enterprises choose the appropriate crisis response strategy. Folkes (1984) demonstrate the failure of customers to the product attribute is based on the incident point (Locus), stability (Stability) and control (Control) of these three dimensions, the customer wish to return, replacement, customers want a sincere apology, and even the behavior of customers to take revenge, are to assess the three dimensions as the basis. But customers are not purely rational to blame attribution, it is obviously affected by environmental factors, personal characteristics such as impact, Folkes (1998) proposed the motivation, information and prior beliefs affect the consumer attribution. However, no scholars have studied the impact of brand reputation on the attribution.Sparkman and Locander (1980) found that prior beliefs will change the product due to customer reputation, Folkes (1998) study the impact of factors of attribution, also found that prior beliefs will influence consumer judgments of attribution. Then the brand reputation can affect consumers as a prior conviction attribution judgments play a protection role? This is the focus of this paper to study, read a lot of literature at home and abroad and found that the quality of the brand reputation of the brand relationship has a positive impact, while the brand relationship quality on the blame attributed to an impact on this basis, the present study Brand reputation Brand Relationship Quality through the attribution model, and in the theoretical model based on the hypotheses put forward, that is better brand reputation, the higher the quality the brand relationship, crisis, consumers will be more inclined to think that after the accident lies with the external environment the crisis is accidental, not controlled, resulting less blame on the business; the contrary, the worse the brand reputation, brand relationship quality, the lower, post-crisis consumers tend to think their own in the enterprise responsible for the accident, incident response There have been problems of enterprises, businesses themselves can, with the attendant increase in the enterprise will be to blame.This paper studies the impact of brand reputation on the attribution mechanism, on the one hand enriches the attribution of prior convictions. In previous research, the proposed relationship between brand reputation through the quality of the brand impact of the blame attributed to the theoretical model of brand reputation on the attribution of mechanisms to enable enterprises to further understand the reaction mechanism of the crisis of the consumer to understand the consumer who why and how to respond to the crisis, once the product harm crisis erupted, would help firms select the appropriate response strategies. On the other hand, helps businesses more concerned about brand reputation, brand building and reputation management. With the development of the market, the brand more competitive, a good brand to brand reputation is the necessary condition of success is when consumers purchase products to be considered an important indicator. Therefore, enterprises should focus on brand building and reputation management, because "it acts as a protective film, will appear in your time of need."...