Uncovering the Corporate Brand's Core Values

The Relationship between the Brand Core Values and Other Variables

In the empirical research related to the core values of the brand, many scholars have explored the core values of the brand and brand loyalty, brand extension and other relations between the variables, the brand core values is introduced as the variables of different types in research.

The Brand Core Values as the Independent Variables

Brand core values can build and maintain brand loyalty. In terms of the relationship between the different types of brand value and brand loyalty, Yu Chunling concludes that functional value, symbolic value and the value of the experience have regional differences in driving brand loyalty effect through empirical study. Wu Peng et al. considers brand core values with a high level gives additional value of social and psychological level beyond product functionality, it guarantees to achieve high brand loyalty. Zhang Qiongfang has indicated that functional value of shopping sites, customer brand experience, the relationship experience have a significant role to enhance loyalty through empirical studies. Lu Songfu proposes brand loyalty is built on the brand perceived quality, brand experience, brand emotion, and brand reputation, thus functional value and emotional value of the brand can bring brand loyalty. About the relationship between affective value and brand loyalty, scholars have also conducted more research. Thomson et al. have verified the three basic dimensions of brand emotional attachment scale, "love", "passion" and "link", have excellent predictive validity on brand loyalty and willingness to pay a premium. Zhou Linsen et al. propose the creation of the emotional value can improve customer loyalty in the context of analysis of constitute factors of the brand emotional value. Symbolic value also plays an important role for the brand loyalty, Yao Shanji says that consumers buy the brand in order to have status, values, identity, then the brand's core values play a major role, it's easy to form brand loyalty.

In addition, some scholars study the relationship between the brand core values and brand extension. Wang Xu presents the brand core values is the center of decision-making of brand extension, decides the brand covers and brand extension force, besides the success of the brand extension in turn further strengthen and enhance the existing connotation of the brand core values. Chen Zhuohao et al. empirically reveals the brand personality matching has a significant impact on consumer brand extension evaluation through experimental studies and confirmatory factor analysis based on perceptual matching connotation. Domestic research on brand personality also believes that the brand personality plays an important role in formation of corporate branding and consumer brand attitudes. The results from the data support the brand personality match has a positive impact on brand extension evaluation (including the brand extension attitude and willingness to buy the product), and also demonstrates brand personality match has a more significant impact than matching category. Wang Yanchen analyzes on the relationship between the dimensions of the core values of the brand and brand extension, it demonstrates the emotional dimension and symbolic dimensions of brand value determine the success of brand extension and cross-border capabilities.

It can be seen that studying the impact of core values of the brand to other marketing variables further validates the importance of brand core values on brand building when we think of the brand core values as the independent variable. These results provide a guideline and basis for the Chinese brand building and brand extension. If our brand can consciously proceed from the point of view of the brand core values to actively build consumer brand relationships, establish contact with consumers emotionally, then consumers are likely to form a relatively high brand loyalty, and also easier to accept brand extensions.

The Brand Core Values as the Dependent Variable

It has been mainly studied the core brand values as the independent variables, the brand core values as the dependent variable, analysis of the pre-variable effects on the brand core values is very few. Yao Jie studies on the shaping the brand core values to brand loyalty-oriented, the empirical results show that product quality, functional innovation and customer response play a significant role to the brand functional values, communication, humaneness and integrity have significant role in promoting brand emotional values, self-expression and social prestige have significant role in promoting brand symbolic values. Studying which variables have a positive or negative impact on the brand core values is more operational for enterprises brand building when we regard the brand core values as the dependent variable. Currently similar studies are relatively small, but such studies are more meaningful for the brand core values practical application, so it is one of the areas of future research could expand.

The Brand Core Values as Mediator or Moderator

In existing empirical research, there are some scholars examine the relationship between other variables while put the brand core values as mediating variables or manipulated variables. For example, Gong Yanping et al. use structural equation modeling to verify the brand trust and the brand symbolic values play mediating effect on the influence of brand extension to consumer brand loyalty. Joining the brand core values as mediator or moderator into relevant studies to explore the mechanism of influence of other variables, to some extent, can verify the role of the brand core values to other variables on the other hand, and enrich the research.