民族品牌跨国并购后的品牌战略研究——弱势品牌视角

2009年,中国民族品牌借全球金融危机之机,为加快其全球化的步伐,花费重金并购国外强势品牌。然而,"蛇吞象"式的跨国并购背后却是消费者的认知失调。同时,国内外现有研究针对改善该认知失调的品牌战略研究十分有限。因此,本文基于认知一致性和顾客品牌资产(CBBE)理论,从弱势品牌视角出发,围绕如何有效减轻"蛇吞象"后消费者的认知失调,运用焦点小组、个人访谈、实验和LME模型,最终得到了一些重要的发现:品牌要素战略(名称变化)、营销支持战略(价格维持或降低)以及次级联想杠杆战略(原产地保留或去除)都对并后品牌绩效产生显著影响。此外,本研究还揭示了消费者认知失调的改善机制,即品牌契合度在减轻消费者失调的并后品牌战略交互效应对品牌绩效的影响中起着重要的中介作用。这些成果既可以丰富现有品牌战略管理理论,也为民族品牌国际化提供实践指导。

The Research on Post-merger Brand Strategies of Chinese Local Brands' Cross-border M&A: From Weaker Brands Perspective

In this financial crsis,Chinese Local Brands(CLB) have acquired many famous and strong foreign brands to accelerate their internationalization.However,"the weakers acquire the strongers" model of cross-border M&As leads to Consumers’ Cognitive Dis-sonance(CCD).The extant research in Chinese or oversea studies concerned is still silent on the the cross-border M&As of the weaker brands on the stronger ones.Thus,based on congitive consistency and customer-based brand equtity(CBBE) theories,this study,from a perspective of weaker brands,finds the way how to attenuate the Consumers’ Coginitive Dissonance(CCD) on the special M&As.Consequently,it uses focus group,in-depth personal interviews,and experiments with Linear Mixed Equation(LME) data-analysis model to shed light on post-merger brand strategies to mitigate Consumers’ Coginitive Dissonance(CCD),i.e.,the changes of brand name,country of origin,and price,and its solution mechanism to enhance brand equities of the arquirer and the acquired.The findings are interesting and important that brand identity strategy(brand name change),marketing supporing program(price maintaining or reduction),and secondary association leveraging strategy(country of origin maintaining or deletion) all have significant influences on post-merger brand equity.More importantly,maintaning country of origin and price have more influence on post-merger brand equity than other post-merger brand strategies.Additionally,it’s concluded to disclose the effect mechanism of post-merge brand strategies on post-merger brand equity that brand fitness mediates the interaction effect between brand identity strategy and supporting marketing program,and the interaction effect among brand identity strategy,supporting marketing program,and leveraging association strategy on post-merger brand equity.The conclusions mentioned above not only enrich the researches and theories on extant brand strategy management and Chinese Local Brands(CLB) internationaliztion,but also offer vital implications for the prevalent cross-border business management and M&A brand strategy of Chinese Local Brands(CLB) at present.