The Negative Spill Over Effect Of Product Harm Crisis On Competitive Brand

Product harm crisis occurs frequently and have become an almost familiar phenomenon in today’s business environment. Not only the brand image and brand equity of the affected enterprise are effected by the product-harm crisis, but also the purchase intention and brand loyalty of the consumer are affected by the crisis. Recently, there have appeared a new phenomenon of the product harm crisis, that is to say, the spillover effect of the crisis on the another companies in the same industry and all the product category. In facing the new trend of the crisis, this article firstly explore how does the spillover effect of the crisis on the competition brand work,based on the competitor’s vision. Then, the crisis brand is divided into two types, that is to say, a strong brand and a weak brand,and this paper explore the role of the different types of affected brands in the spillover effect of the crisis. Moreover,this paper has introduced the temporal and spatial distance of the Psychology Distance, in order to discuss the moderating of the temporal and spatial distance.Based on the research of domestic and foreign scholars,the paper has built the concept model of the spillover effect of the product harm crisis, and put forward the research hypothesis of the spillover effect of the crisis, through combing the literature. At the same time, the paper used the experimental method to design the experiments and the questionnaire, and adopt SPSS19.0 for the data analysis. The paper’s results demonstrate that:Firstly, the negative spillover effects of the crisis on the brand attitude and consumers’ purchase intention of the competitive brand happens after the product harm crisis; it is even more significant of the negative spillover effects of the crisis on the competitors under the strong brand situation, comparing to the weak brand situation.Secondly,the temporal distance plays a moderating role in the situation where the negative spillover effects of the crisis have effect on the affected company; no matter what the situation of the weak brand or the strong brand are,it is less significant of the negative spillover effects on the competitors under the situation of far temporal distance, comparing to the nearly temporal distance. Last, the spatial distance also plays the moderating role in the same situation; no matter what the situation of the weak brand or the strong brand are, it is less significant of the negative spillover effects on the competitors under the situation of far spatial distance,comparing to the nearly spatial distance. Finally,the paper put forward some suggestions:First, the competition brand should focus on the product harm crisis from the strong brand of the whole industry, once found the product harm crisis occurs,the competitive brand must make appropriate response in a timely manner and give the consumer the most plausible explanation.Second, in the short period of time after the crisis, the competitive brand could respond appropriately to crisis events in a timely manner;in a long time after crisis,the competitor must strengthen communication with other companies and establish information sharing mechanism to prevent the crisis from happening again.Third, the competitive brand and the crisis brand are geographically apart, the competitive brand should timely respond to recall defective product clarify that there is no the product harm crisis events of the brand.And,the competitive brand and the crisis brand are far apart,the competitor can make use of information platform in a timely manner to understand crisis dynamic and make effective product promotion strategy to expand market share.