MYTHICIZING ASIAN BRANDS IN THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE

Abstract

Emerging Asian markets such as China and India have drawn tremendous attention to marketing and consumer researchers in the past decades (e.g., Cayla & Eckhardt, 2008; Dong & Tian, 2009). The increasing purchasing power of the new middle-class Asian consumers attracted not only global brands but also local brands from the region. Previous studies on Asian consumers found that consumers are actively using Western brands to construct their modern or global identities (e.g., Dong & Tian, 2009). Other studies explored how regional or local brands redefine themselves in both regional and transnational markets (Cayla & Eckhardt, 2008; Wu, Borgerson & Schroeder, 2013). In this study, we employed a cultural approach (Cayla & Arnould, 2008) to examine how Asian brands mythicize themselves in the global marketplace through various storytelling and myth-making strategies. We compare and contrast the mythology and storytelling strategies (Boje, 1995; Lundqvist, Liljander, Gummerus & van Riel, 2013; Vincent, 2001) employed by three Asian consumer electronic brands, Samsung (South Korea), Sony (Japan), and Xiaomi Technology (China) and report our key findings in the following sections. In marketing literature, brand is defined as “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those other sellers” by the American Marketing Association (Keller, 2013, p. 2). In recently years, brands have been viewed as an integral part of contemporary popular culture (Cayla & Arnould, 2008; Hancock, 2009, 2013; Holt, 2004, 2006; Klein, 2001; Moor, 2007). Brands, like other cultural artefacts such as folklore, dance, songs, and costumes, have significant impact on shaping consumers’ everyday lives and influence on how they define their world