Cross-cultural empirical research on managing brands over time: Focusing on moderate inconsistency, memory advantage, and dialectical thinking

本研究的目的是通过从消费者的角度实证地确定一种建立强大品牌的机制，从而发展一种新的品牌管理理论。在2022财年，通过从消费者的角度思考品牌寿命的意义，进一步完善了假设。一个品牌的长期生存意味着它会在消费者的脑海中留下印记。我们从市场营销学、消费者行为学、社会心理学等多个学科进行文献综述，找出消费者对品牌长期保持记忆的变量和机制。此外，对长寿品牌如Takara Tomy的Rika-chan进行了案例研究。基于文献回顾和案例研究，我们现在关注三个概念。首先是粉丝圈。让消费者成为品牌的粉丝，对消费者长期记住品牌是有效的。有趣的是，品牌管理中的粉丝效应研究仍然很少，尤其是在日本以外。第二，我们正在研究情绪的多样性，即表情多样性。在品牌体验中体验不同的情感，会导致对品牌的回忆更高、更久。第三，我们假设，谈论特定品牌的愿望是品牌留在消费者记忆中的必要条件。因此，我们决定使用“谈论特定品牌的欲望”作为我们未来实证研究的因变量。这两个主题将在2023财年进一步研究。

The objective of this research is to develop a new theory in brand management by empirically identifying a mechanism for building strong brands over time from a consumer perspective. In FY2022, the hypotheses were further refined by thinking the meaning of brand longevity from a consumer perspective. Long-term survival of a brand means that it remains in the consumers' mind across time. We have conducted the literature review in various disciplines including marketing, consumer behavior, and social psychology to identify variables and mechanisms for consumers to keep brands in their minds for a long time. In addition, case studies on longevity brands such as Takara Tomy's Rika-chan was conducted. Based on literature review and case studies, we are now focusing on three concepts. First is a fandom. Making consumers a fan of the brand is effective for consumers to remember the brands for a long time. Interestingly, the research on fandom in brand management is still scarce especially outside Japan. Second, we are looking into a diversity of emotions, namely emodiversity. Experiencing diverse emotions in a brand experience will lead to higher as well as longer recall of brands. Third, we hypothesized that a desire to talk about the particular brands is a necessary condition for brands to remain in the consumer memory. Thus, we have decided to use "desire to talk about the particular brand" as a dependent variable for our future empirical studies. These two themes will be further examined in FY2023.