企业品牌危机管理中的舍得行为研究

Research on the “Give and Get” Behavior of Firms in Brand Crisis Management

本文扎根本土文化,构建品牌舍得行为理论,围绕品牌危机情境下,企业"舍"的行为对"得心"和"得利"的影响展开讨论。通过一个访谈分析和两个实验研究,结果发现:品牌危机情境下,决策者越是大"舍",越能得到顾客的"心",即越能修复并提升顾客对品牌的信任和情感,进而企业就越能得到更多的"利",表现为顾客对品牌的评价和再购意愿提升。其中,与危机归因于内(人为)相比,当危机归因于外(天灾)时,"舍"对"得"的正向影响将被加强。研究结论不仅对本土文化营销理论的建构有重要的参考意义,而且对品牌危机管理的实践有重要指导作用。

For a long time,brand crisis has been a heated topic in the research and practice of marketing.Recent years,with the fast advancement of mobile information technology,the negative impact of brand crisis events is continuously amplified by the internet,bringing strong detrimental effects to corporate reputation,customer confidence,and even the whole social trust.Extant literature on this topic mainly focused on how to cope with brand crisis through three perspectives:the firm,media and experts.However,most of these coping strategies given by previous studies are relatively detailed and piecemeal,and also these conclusions are derived from western theoretical background,which can not fully reflect the Chinese cultural context and local wisdom of decision making,nor provide meaningful strategic guidance to local firms.This research endeavors to construct a“give and get”theory of the brand by investigating how the“give”behavior of brand influences the“heart-get”and“profit-get”results on the firm after brand crisis.Firstly,this paper puts forward two premises of“give and get”;one is the“brain”,that is the belief that causality is not empty;the other is the“heart”,that is the size of empathy.Secondly,this paper comes up with six aspects of the characteristics of“give and get”;the subject of“give and get”,the content of“give and get”,the direction of“give and get”,the equal relation of“give and get”,the time relationship of“give and get”and the process of“give and get”.Based on“give and get”theory of the brand,this paper constructs the research model;the independent variable is brand crisis coping ways(give big and give small),the mediation variables is“heart-get”(brand trust and emotional repair),the dependent variable is the“profit-get”(brand evaluation and repurchase intention),the moderator variables is crisis attribution(external or internal).The general logic is as follows:in the face of brand product quality crisis,enterprises can restore customers trust and emotion to the brand through the way of“give-get”.If give big,it can turn a crisis to a chance.If give small,it can make concessions to avoid trouble,further affect customer brand evaluation and repurchase intention(profit).In this process,if the brand crisis is attributable to the outside world(natural disasters),the logic of the mainline in the model will be strengthened,and the logic of the mainline will be weakened due to internal(man-made disaster).Through one qualitative study and two quantitative studies,we found that under the context of brand crisis,the bigger the brand“gives”,the more likely it would“get”the“heart”of consumers,that is,repair and improve the brand of customer trust and brand emotion.Consequently,the firm could also“get”more“profits”,that is,positive brand evaluation and repurchase intention.In addition,compared with when the crisis is attributed to internal factor(e.g.the firm s fault),when the crisis is attributed to external factors(e.g.natural disaster),the positive effect of“give”on“get”would be strengthened.Study 1 is a depth interview on fourteen Chinese consumers,which initially established the conceptualization of“big give”and“small give”,and the feasibility of the main theoretical model.Experiment 1 is a two(brand crisis coping;big give vs.small give)by two(crisis attribution;internal vs.external)between-subject experiment design on 146 consumers.The results show that after brand crisis of automobile quality deficiency,compared with when the firm“give small”,when the firm“give big”,it could reap more positive brand trust and brand emotion(i.e.“get heart”),and also get more positive brand evaluation and repurchase intention(i.e.“get profit”).Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 with different context and stimuli in which consumers have higher involvement.Finally,this paper has three conclusions:From the theory perspective,firstly,it defines the connotation of“give-get”.Secondly,it analyzes the process of“give-get”.Thirdly,the boundary conditions of the internal and external attribution(man-made vs.natural disaster)are discussed.From the practice perspective:firstly,brand crisis;give big and get big,give small and get small.Secondly,who beloved and supported by the people,who will win the world.Thirdly,emotional ties to brands and consumers,the crisis brands dare to be responsible and the courage to play.Our research findings not only has important implications for the construction of local culture marketing theory,but also give useful guidance to the practice of brand crisis management in China.