브랜드 위기의 유형이 브랜드 태도에 미치는 부정적 영향에 관한 연구

초록

The concept that brand equity is one of the most important assets to be a winner in marketing war has been prevalent among marketing executives. Many companies try to provide positive information to consumers to build and strengthen their brands. Consumers, however, are not exposed to only favorable information but also negative information about a brand. When consumers are exposed to negative information about a brand, brand equity might get damaged or diluted depending on the severity of the information. The brand crisis is the extended concept of a product harm crisis. It is referred that the brand equity is diluted by exposure to negative information whether it is true or not. Hence, companies are not only eager to build a strong brand but also concerned about maintaining the brand equity by preventing or effectively responding to a brand crisis. Regarding brand crisis, previous studies have little attention to the influence that might be caused by various types of brand crisis. For example, the recent brand crisis of Toyota was triggered by functional defects of its products, thus it caused the damage to its corporate ability (CA) image. On the other hand, the reports on NIKE's exploitation of sweatshop labor in Vietnam or Starbucks Coffee's unfair transaction of coffee beans are not associated with the companies' product quality or technology, but with their corporate social responsibility (CSR). Thus, consumers' reaction might be quite diverse because the contexts or causes of a brand crisis are not always the same. It would be effective for companies to use different response strategies in different brand crisis situations. This research categorizes brand crisis into two types - one associated with corporate ability (CA) and the other associated with corporate social responsibility (CSR) - and investigates how consumers respond to different types of brand crisis. In addition, the potential moderating factors of this differential effects are also proposed and examined - level of a brand along brand hierarchy (corporate brand vs. individual brand) and type of self-construal (independent vs. interdependent). Results show that the brand crisis associated with CA leads to more unfavorable attitude than that associated with CSR. In addition, the difference in consumer reactions between the two different types of brand crisis gets stronger when the crisis occurred on an individual brand level, and gets weaker when the crisis occurred on a corporate brand level. Regarding self-construal, independent self-construal consumers show more negative response to brand crisis associated with corporate ability rather than corporate social responsibility while consumers with interdependent self-construal don't show significant differences between the two types of brand crisis. Lastly, the present research discusses the findings' theoretical and practical implications, limitations and guidelines for future studies related to this issue.

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