The Interplay between Global and Local Brands: A Closer Look at Perceived Brand Globalness and Local Iconness

Abstract

By studying consumer samples in an emerging market, Turkey, and two mature markets, Singapore and Denmark, the author tests the chain of relationships that drive consumers’ likelihood of purchasing the global brand in the presence of a local brand in a linear structural relations framework. The results indicate that perceived brand globalness is positively related to local iconness in an emerging market, but the relationship is negative in advanced markets. Developing local iconness helps build the perception of prestige in all three markets. Furthermore, local iconness is positively related to local brand quality perceptions in the culturally grounded categories of food in an emerging market, whereas in nonfood categories, local iconness has no connection to quality. In terms of cross-effects, as expected, the perceived quality of the local brand is negatively associated with global brand purchase likelihood in all markets and categories studied. In contrast, local brand prestige dampens global brand purchase likelihood for older consumers in an emerging market. The article concludes with implications for global and local brand managers.