消費者知識與延伸品牌之評價:以IT產品為例

Abstract

因為考量資訊科技產品生命週期的關係，消費者對品牌延伸的評價己經成為資訊科技產品重要的研究領域，短暫生命週期己成為資訊科技產品行銷的重要議題，行銷人員推行新產品計畫時必須重視時間因素，一個替選方法是實作品牌延伸。影響消費者評估及認知品牌延伸有很多面向，本研究著眼於消費者的專業程度及母產品和延伸產品之間的關係(deep cues and surface cues)，目的是了解兩者之間的互動以及它們如何影響品牌延伸評價。為了加強消費者對品牌延伸的評價，本研究假設消費者的專業程度會相關於母產品和延伸產品之間的關係，因為專家評價品牌延伸是基於產品的deep cues，而初學者評價品牌延伸則基於產品的surface cues，研究採用實驗法來檢定假設，共有80位學生參加實驗，實證結果顯示專家消費者展現出較好的品牌延伸評價，當延伸品牌產品之於母產品有相同的deep cues 但不同的surface cues，甚於在相同same surface 但不同deep cues 的情況。另一方面，初學者在相同same surface 但不同deep cues 的情況表現較好甚於在相同的deep cues 但不同的 surface cues 情況。研究結果提供了一個有力的證據支持研究假設。 關鍵字：品牌延伸、延伸評價、專家、deep cues, surface cues

Consumer’s evaluation of brand extension had become an important research topic in IT products marketing due to the concerns of IT products’ life cycle problems. Thus marketers need to consider the timing issue in the promotion program for new products. One of the appropriate and alternative solutions for this issue is to implement brand extension. The purpose of this study is to understand the interaction between consumer’s expertise and relation between parent product and extension product (deep cues and surface cues) and how they affect the brand extension evaluation. It is hypothesized that the degree of consumers’ expertise should be coordinated to the relation between the parent product and extension product in an equivalent manner. The research methodology of the experiment is used to test the hypothesis and 80 student subjects are recruited to participate in the experiment. The empirical results of this study show that experts perform a high degree of brand extension evaluation when the extension products have the same deep cues but different surface cues to the parent product than experts in the same surface cues but different deep cues condition. On the other hand, novices in the same surface cues but different deep cues condition perform better than novices in the same deep cues but different surface cues condition. The results of this research provide strong evidence to support our hypotheses. Key words：brand extension, extension evaluation, expertise, deep cues, surface cues