1. Introduction

Brands have received widespread attention from consumer psychologists because they are the embodiment of businesses in consumers’ lives [1]. Early scholars mostly focused on studying the psychological impact of brands on consumers, such as brand research trends in consumer psychology. Long Ma. et al. (2022) studied the impact of consumers’ cognition and emotions towards social media brand pages on purchasing decisions. However, the impact on consumer behavior is relatively rare [2]. Despite changes in consumers’ lifestyles and information processing methods, brand image remains the dominant factor affecting consumption decisions [3].

Each enterprise has its own marketing strategy and brand strategy. Whatever the marketing strategy of the company, its primary aim is to affect the perception and attitude of consumers. And build up brand image in the mind of consumers, stimulate their actual buying behavior[3], and stimulate consumers to purchase the company’s products. The changes in consumer behavior may have different reasons, including personal, psychological, and social factors [4]. This study explores the relationship between brand image and consumer behavior from the perspective of consumers. It consists of three parts.The first introduces the establishment and maintenance of brand image. The second reviews and analyzes the relationship between brand image and consumers. The third reviews and analyzes the influence of brand image on consumer buying behavior.

2. Establishment And Maintenance of Brand Image

2.1. Overview of Brand Image

Brand Image Theory is an innovative concept put forward in the mid-60s by David Ogilvy. He believed that brand image is an asset and should have unique personality. The brand image includes two aspects, One is tangible and the other is intangible. Tangible means the capability of a brand product or service to satisfy a customer’s need. For example, washing machines can reduce the burden of washing clothes in households, and cameras can capture people’s valuable moments. This specific content is the foundation for the emergence of brand image; The invisible content is the special charm of the brand, which is given by the marketing staff, and can be perceived and accepted by the consumers [5].

2.2. Brand Image Establishment

The main reason that triggers the establishment of brand image is people’s association with the brand, which means that when a brand name is mentioned, consumers will remember certain things. For example, when it comes to Disney, consumers will think of Lina Bell’s cute image and various Disney movies, which makes Disney a brand full of fairy tales and imagination. When it comes to Coca Cola, people think of its unique bottle packaging and unique cola flavor. This association connects the brand image with many things, driving the establishment and development of the image. There are three driving factors for brand image: 1. The image of the product or service itself. What are the products and services. 2. Product or service provider image. The characteristics of product and service providers. 3.Image of the user. Who are the users. To establish a specific brand image, it is necessary to attach great importance to these three factors [5].

2.3. Brand Image Maintenance

Once the brand image is established, its image in the minds of consumers can be said to be very fragile. In the early stages of establishing a brand image, it has not yet formed a deeply rooted image in the minds of the public, so its image in the minds of consumers can be said to be very fragile. For example, Shanghai aunt once planned to collaborate with Tencent’s game Light and Night Love, but some of his staff made inappropriate comments online, insulting the game characters of the collaboration, and even threatening to spit in milk tea. Later on, the game officially cancelled the linkage, and the game players promoted and boycotted the brand, causing it to become a hot search on Weibo and causing countless curses from the brand. Therefore, a brand requires the forging of a sustained and stable enterprise [6]. The brand image needs to be maintained. For example, MIXUE has done a good job in brand maintenance. After learning that Starbucks had driven away the police for rest, the MIXUE specially pulled a banner to welcome the police to the store for rest. It also organized activities to provide free drinks to Sanitation worker in the hot summer. When encountering customers who failed in the college entrance examination, I specially wrote a note to comfort them. These are similar to the Shanghai aunt incident, although they are also a matter of individual stores, but they have accumulated bit by bit, accumulating brand reputation and consolidating the brand image for MIXUE. There are three main ways to maintain a brand: 1. The brand should reflect its personality, highlight its characteristics, and avoid empty connotations; 2. Determine the brand value system, meet key needs, and develop products to enhance competitiveness based on market demand. 3. Enhance brand personality and visibility [6].

3. Brand Image and Consumer Relations

A brand is an identification mark that distinguishes products, a symbol used to shorthand products, and a bridge for effective communication between consumers and businesses. Through the role of a brand name or logo, consumers can quickly associate many characteristics of the product, such as Quality, style, function, shape, after-sales service, etc. [7]. Famous brands have a strong brand effect, which has high credibility and attractiveness to buyers. There is a huge difference in market share between famous brand enterprises and general enterprises, which is due to the high popularity, reputation, and loyalty of famous brands. In the process of market promotion, it is easy to impress consumers and win their recognition without spending too much publicity investment; On the contrary, ordinary brands have doubts about consumers and face difficulties in the promotion process [8]. For example, miHoYo Company is famous for the Genshin game, and many people know the game brand. miHoYo Company has also earned a lot of money to promote the new game Star Rail, and even many players of miHoYo Games spontaneously promote the new game. Therefore, Star Rail only made it to the game hot list of major application apps on its first day of launch. Because the company’s brand has sufficient fan base and media attention, as well as sufficient funds, promotion is easy. On the contrary, another game, codenamed Yuan, was launched by a small company brand and was completely ignored when it was launched. Although it later became famous in the women’s gaming industry with its brilliant plot, it did take much more time than the promotion of well-known game brands.

4. The Influence of Brand Image on Consumer Buying Behavior

Brand image reflects consumers’ expectations for products, can help consumers effectively and quickly screen information, and is also an important way for enterprise marketing communication and word-of-mouth. When customers want to buy something, they will follow the steps of confirmation, inquiry, assessment, purchase, and feedback. Finally, customers will choose a product or brand from various choices in the market for consumption [9]. Various important brand image factors such as website design, product prices, after-sales service, and logistics largely determine whether consumers trust the brand [10]. Consumers’ trust in brand image can affect their attitude towards the brand, which in turn affects their purchasing behavior.

To encourage consumers to take an active part in brand-related activities, the brand intentionally designs and develops post content through various information strategies [11]. Scholars and practitioners have conducted extensive research, Existing studies often use questionnaire surveys to investigate consumer participation. Due to the potential involvement of psychological factors in the questionnaire, these studies mainly focus on exploring consumers’ emotions and cognition. However, individual behavior analysis based on self-statement is often questioned due to the accuracy and response bias of the questionnaire [2].

4.1. The Impact of Strong and Weak Brands on Consumer Behavior

Fame and reputation are crucial factors in measuring brand strength. The popularity and reputation of weak brands are lower than that of strong brands (i.e. they are easy to identify, but relatively difficult to recall independently), and consumers have greater difficulty in recalling and perceiving weak brands and need to be stimulated with more workload [12]. Zhao Kai et al. (2019) found that when consumers engage in purchasing behavior, the evaluations of other users have little impact on strong brands, but a certain impact on weak brands [13]. Because consumers already have corresponding brand awareness and relatively fixed brand impressions for strong brands, they are not easily influenced by the opinions and opinions of others [13]. For example, people know that McDonald’s has strict regulations on food, and the strong brand McDonald’s has spread worldwide. Most consumers are relatively confident about its food safety. Even if someone comments that McDonald’s sells expired food, most people will only consider it as a rumor. On the contrary, if a non-chain fast food restaurant on the roadside sees reviews online stating that the food has expired, consumers may believe it and stop consuming because they do not have sufficient awareness of this vulnerable brand.

4.2. The Impact of Parent Child Brands on Consumer Behavior

It can be observed in the daily consumption scene that the same parent brand usually has multiple sub brands, such as Coca Cola, Diet Coke and Zero Coca Cola., Consumers will develop a "brand love" between mother and child brands, which means that their love and attention to the mother brand will spill over to the child brands [12].

5. Conclusion

Brand and marketing are both very important to enterprises, and their relationship can be simply summarized as: brand is the core, marketing is the means, and profit is the purpose. Without the support of brands, especially famous brands, it is difficult for marketing to be exciting, moving, and lasting; Without effective marketing and promotion, the enormous value of a brand lacks ways to achieve and add value. Brand and marketing support each other, complement each other, generate synergy effects, jointly serve the market, and achieve the goal of obtaining excess profits. In addition, in current research on the relationship between brands and consumers, the behavioral variable most people choose is purchase intention. In future research, we can also consider consumer willingness, purchase frequency, and other variables as variables, and we can also consider consumer cognitive changes more before behavioral variables. In terms of research methods, most existing studies have used a single experimental method that relies on questionnaire surveys. Future research can consider laboratory experiments, field experiments, or experiments in real purchase scenarios to verify the dynamic changes in consumer behavior under different circumstances.