Consumer Sentiment Toward Marketing in Austria and Some Exploratory Cross-National Comparisons

Abstract

This paper focuses on the measurement of consumer sentiment toward marketing, which has been of interest to academic and commercial researchers for many years. The study’s overall purpose is to assess the transferability and meaning-fulness of Gaski and Etzel’s (1986) Index of Consumer Sentiment toward Marketing (ICSM) in another — the Austrian — marketing environment where there is a typically low marketing intensity. In a further step, Austrian findings are compared with data from the U.S. (Gaski and Etzel 1986), Hong Kong (Wee and Chan 1989) and Australia (Chan. Yau and Chan 1990) in an exploratory way. Reliability and validity tests on the measurement instrument confirm its transferability to another national context without losing quality. In substance. Austrian consumers tend to view retailing efforts more positively, whereas they perceive product quality and the general price level more negatively and are particularly ill-disposed toward advertising. International comparison evidenced that increased marketing intensity hampers perceptions of product quality and pricing policies. From an international marketing perspective, the instrument seems also suitable for measuring consumer sentiment toward marketing in different countries. Information of such type could be used to assess the marketing environment not only in a home market but also in certain markets abroad, and thus, could find application in international marketing decision-making like country selection, marketing budgeting and advertising planning.