How to protect brand relationship quality in corporate crisis by appropriate communication strategy?—Moderating effect of consumer psychological contract

Many factors affect brand relationship quality in corporate crisis, crisis communication strategy (CCS) for example. Different communication strategies may generate different impacts on consumers. However we can´t ignore other factors that influence communication effects, such as consumer types. This paper uses consumer psychological contract (CPC) to distinguish the types of consumers and brand relationship quality (BRQ) to quantify crisis communication effects. We conducted a scenario-based experiment using beverage as stimulus and divided crisis communication strategies into three: apology, defense and compensation. The result showed that compensation is a better crisis communication strategy when consumer psychological contract is transactional;Communication strategies make no difference when consumer psychological contract is relational. CPC is identified as a moderator between the CCS and BRQ.