Research On The Effects Of Ingredient Branding Strategies On Customer's Private Brand Trust And Willingness To Pay A Premium

With the continuous competition in the retail industry and the upgrading of consumer demand,some foreign advanced retailers,for achieving differentiated competition,have adopted a multi-level private brand strategy,changing gradually from the "price-centric" to "quality-centered ",develop the premium private brand,positioning in the" high quality,high prices,".However,due to the lack of management experience of local retailers,consumers now have formed the concept of "PB means low quality",which undoubtedly constitute China retail enterprises to build premium private brand Hinder.How to change the negative perception of its private brand,and reshape the brand trust,is becoming the focus of retail industry.This paper solves this paradox by studying the effect of ingredient branding strategies on consumer's willingness to pay for premium based on cue utilization theory,and the Howard-Sheth model.Specifically,based on reviewing the relevant literatures,this paper selects element status as mediating variables,brand competence trust and brand goodwill trust as moderator variable.To assess this model,using 2(Ingredient Branding Strategy:Joint Strategy vs Private Strategy)X 2(Element Status:Core vs Subsidiary)experiment,designing 4 different experimental situations.The data was analyzed with the SPSS 22 and LISREL 8.7.The conclusions are as follow:(1)Compared with Private Strategy,the effect of Joint Strategy on Brand Trust is more significant,and private brand trust plays an intermediary role in Ingredient Branding Strategy and Willingness to Pay for Premium,including both Brand Competence Trust and Brand Goodwill Trust;(2)When element in subsidiary position,the effect of Joint Strategy relative to Private Strategy on Brand Competence Trust is more significant;(3)When element in subsidiary position,the effect of Joint Strategy relative to Private Strategy on Brand Goodwill Trust is more significant.The conclusions above,on the one hand,enrich the theoretical research in the field of private brand by introducing ingredient brands as the external clue of private brands and a point of penetration of research to enrich the contents of premium private brand.In the meantime,the conclusions also expand the ingredient effective paths and strategic suggestions for retailers to develop premium private brands.It is necessary for retailers to realize the promotion of consumer's private brand trust,should be anterior to willingness to pay a premium for premium private brand,and need to understand the differences of the different ingredient branding strategies,and then choose the effective way based on enterprise resources and ability.Nevertheless,the research conclusions above also have some limitations.First of all,the research data is from a experiment of customer's willingness to pay a premium for private brand,but not the same as real behavior.So further research could consider using the real retailer operation data.Secondly,some other factors,such as the co-brand strength are not included in this research.Finally,it is necessary to define the boundary,because this article specifically concerned with the problem of the retailers' private brand elements of the brand,but considering private brand assets are generally lower than the manufacturer's,it might reduce the effect of ingredient branding,so whether the research conclusion is suitable for general brands is still need a further verification.