The Effect Of Copycat Brands’ Imitation Type On Consumer Decision Making

Brand imitation strategy is used as an effective way to reduce the risk and costwhen a new brand or a retailer private brand come into the market, how the imitationtype or imitative strategy by the leading brand influence on consumer decision makingis a question that the brand manufacturers and marketing scholars need to study.Previous studies focused on the attribute-based copycats, and the appearances of highsimilarity brands tend to cause consumer confusion and legal infringement problems.Therefore, we seek a more subtle copycat strategy and explore its effect on consumerdecision making mechanism. This paper introduced consumer’s individualcharacteristics: need for cognition and consumer knowledge. By means of threeexperimental designs, we examine how they interact with copycats’ imitation type ininducing consumers’ brand attitude, and purchase intention. Based on the experimentalresults, we propose some targeted marketing strategies to the brand manufacturers.Experiment one tested how the level of need for cognition affected consumers’brand attitude and purchase intention among different type of copycats. The results ofANOVA indicated that, compared with theme-based copycat, consumer of low need forcognition showed more favorable brand attitudes and purchase intention towards theattribute-based copycat. However, the main effect of copycats’ imitation type wasnonsignificant in the high need for cognition.Experiment two was designed to test how the level of consumer knowledgeaffected the brand attitude and purchase intention of them among the different type ofcopycats. The results indicated that, compared with theme-based copycat, consumer oflow level knowledge showed more favorable brand attitudes and purchase intentiontowards the attribute based copycat. However, the main effect of copycats’ imitationtype was nonsignificant in the high knowledge group.Experiment three tested how the interaction between the need for cognition andknowledge level, affected consumers’ brand attitude and purchase intention amongdifferent type of copycats. The results indicated that, when consumer had lowknowledge, compared with theme-based copycat, consumer showed more favorablebrand attitudes and purchase intention towards the attribute-based copycat either in thelow or high need for cognition. However, the main effect of copycats’ imitation typewas nonsignificant either in the high need for cognition. When consumer had high knowledge, the main effect of copycats’ imitation type was nonsignificant either in thehigh need for cognition. Just when consumer had middle knowledge, the level of needfor cognition effected consumer’s decision: compared with theme-based copycat,consumer of low need for cognition showed more favorable brand attitudes andpurchase intention towards the attribute-based copycat. However, the main effect ofcopycats’ imitation type was nonsignificant in the high need for cognition.