The Impact Of Price Strategy Of Downward Extension Of Product Line On Consumer Brand Evaluation

With the rapid development of globalization,the brand can enter new product segments at relatively low cost by extending its product line downward,continuously expand the influence of its products,and obtain greater economic benefits.However,the downward extension of product line may result in the dilution of brand value,which will hit the original product or even the whole brand.This study mainly studies the impact of extended product pricing strategy on brand owner' brand evaluation when extending its product line downward,and explores the response of consumers of different self-construction types to price strategy,as well as the role of brand communication strategy on brand owners'brand evaluation in product line downward extension.On the basis of previous studies,this study is based on classification theory and social comparison theory,constructed a theoretical model of the effects of price strategy,self-construction types and brand communication strategy on the evaluation of whole brands.This study took college students as samples,adopted the method of combining experiment and questionnaire survey,and through two experiments,tested the theoretical hypothesis proposed in this study,and verified the impact of price strategy on brand owners' brand evaluation with empirical data.The main conclusions:In the product line extension,the lower the price of the product,the more negative the brand owners' brand evaluation is.Compared with using relational communication strategy,using the interpretive communication strategy can weaken the brand owners' negative evaluation of the brand.For interdependent self-constructed consumers,the lower price of extended products,the more negative the brand owners'evaluations will be.Compared with the extended products which is 50%lower than the original product price,the use of interpretive communication strategy for extended products which is 25%lower than the original product price can eliminate the negative impact of brand owners' evaluation on the brand.For independent self-constructed consumers,the lower the price of the extended product,the more it can weaken the negative evaluation of the original brand by the brand owners.Compared with the extended product which is 25%lower than the original product price,the extended product which is 50%lower than the original product price can eliminate the negative evaluation of the brand by the brand owners by using the interpretive communication strategy.Based on the above conclusions,brands need to carefully consider launching new products by means of product line extension to expand low-end market.And we should pay attention to the price of extended products when carrying out the downward extension of product line.Too low price of extended products will harm the brand.At the same time,the negative brand evaluation of brand owners can be alleviated or even eliminated through the use of interpretative communication strategy to fully reflect the difference between extended products and original products.