Global Consumer Culture Positioning Research Articles

Improving attitudes toward brands with global consumer culture positioning: The triggering role of emotions

AbstractThis research examines how incidentally evoked approach‐oriented (vs. avoidance‐oriented) emotions help improve consumer attitudes toward brands with global consumer culture positioning (GCCP). Moreover, we demonstrate that promotion‐focused brand associations that are uniquely linked with GCCP messages mediate this effect, while this effect is eliminated when consumers are aware of the potential influence of their emotions on judgment. We conducted four experiments to examine and clarify the above effects. The findings contribute theoretically by introducing emotions as a novel antecedent to consumers' GCCP preferences. Practically, this research provides actionable guidelines for international marketers in effectively implementing GCCP strategies.

How do international advertisers use consumer culture positioning strategies? A cross-national, cross-category approach

PurposeThe present paper explores how advertisers use consumer culture positioning (CCP) strategies in advertising across countries and product categories.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a content analysis approach to investigate usage of CCP strategies and symbols across different CCP strategies, countries and product categories. The authors focussed on country of origin (COO) cues as symbols of CCP. The authors collected printed advertisements from countries at different levels of economic development and communication orientation for the content analysis, namely, Austria (n = 182), Hungary (n = 199) and Turkey (n = 120) and products with high- vs low-involvement levels.FindingsFindings of this study indicated that global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) and local consumer culture positioning (LCCP) advertisements relied more on implicit symbols, while foreign consumer culture positioning (FCCP) advertisements predominantly employed explicit ones. Types of symbols and their utilisation varied across countries and product categories, with language, tag lines/logos and brand names being key components across different advertisements.Practical implicationsThe results document the practices of CCP-based advertising, offering important insights on whether and how symbolism can be effectively used for communicating different CCPs across markets.Originality/valueLittle is known in terms of how specific symbols are used to communicate consumers’ culture. In this study, the authors analysed the content of 501 real-print advertisements across multiple countries and product categories. This study contributes to the theory and practice by revealing how consumers’ culture manifests through diverse COO symbols in advertising imagery and by facilitating the application of such manifestations across market contexts.

Effects of Global Consumer Culture Positioning versus Local Consumer Culture Positioning in TV Advertisements on Consumers’ Brand Evaluation and Attitude toward Brand

Purpose - We perform an empirical analysis of the effects of global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) in TV advertisements on consumer’s brand...

When face meets globalization

PurposeSynthesizing the unique Confucian cultural values and the common characteristics of emerging markets, the purpose of this paper is to examine how face drives consumers’ attitudes toward global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) as well as the moderating roles of social aggrandizement and susceptibility to normative influence (SNI).Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopt the total effect moderation model to test the hypotheses using data collected from China.FindingsThe results show that face positively affects consumers’ attitudes toward GCCP through enhancing their pursuit for global myth. In addition, social aggrandizement positively moderates the influence of face on pursuit for global myth. SNI positively moderates the influence of pursuit for global myth on attitudes toward GCCP.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study highlight the need to utilize local powers to promote brands globally and provide guidelines for “Think Globally, Act Locally” in Confucian societies.Originality/valueThis study represents an important step in the global branding literature regarding the advancement of culturally driven attitudes toward GCCP by taking root in the Confucian culture.

Beyond reach: an extended model of global brand effects

PurposeDespite considerable investigations of the various outcomes of perceived brand globalness (PBG), the concept itself remains ambiguous, demanding further conceptual refinement. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to global branding literature by suggesting an extended conceptualization of PBG, and empirically testing a corresponding extended model of global brand effects, relative to the conventional operationalization.Design/methodology/approachAn empirical study (n=907) involving 63 brands across eight different product categories provides new insights into the composition of global brand effects by explicitly discriminating between different facets of consumers’ brand globalness perceptions (i.e. perceived market reach (PMR), perceived standardization (PST) and global consumer culture positioning (GCCP)).FindingsThe results clearly show that effects associated with global brands are not exclusively positive. While PMR and GCCP have positive effects on consumers’ brand evaluations and attitudes, PST has a strong negative effect on the same outcomes. These effects apply to both domestic and foreign global brands and occur irrespective of the perceived level of risk associated with a given product category.Originality/valueThe results provide managers a clearer picture of the up- and downsides of brand globalness perceptions and urge future studies on global brands to incorporate constructs that account for facets beyond a brand’s market reach to capture the phenomenon holistically.

Country-of-origin and brand positioning for health care services

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between country-of-origin (COO) and brand positioning in the context of the high-involvement service of health care. This paper compares and analyzes different positioning strategies used in Europe, North America and the Middle East.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses content analysis of promotional materials for a sample of 168 health-care organizations located in 14 countries to identify brand positioning strategies used, such as foreign, local and global consumer culture positioning. A chi-square analysis and post hoc testing is used to examine how positioning strategies differ among regions.FindingsThe findings indicate that European and Middle Eastern health-care organizations most frequently use foreign consumer culture positioning, while North American institutions tend to use global consumer culture positioning. The findings indicate that health-care organizations in countries with a better reputation for care use different positioning strategies than in countries with a lesser reputation for quality care.Practical implicationsThe findings are of value to international advertising and marketing professionals and hospitals seeking to attract patients globally in a competitive marketplace. Hospitals must consider their positioning relative to both domestic and international competitors and the COO of their target audience.Originality/valueCOO is important in high-involvement service industries because consumers lack the information needed to evaluate service quality. Consumers may rely on COO and brand positioning signals more heavily relative to goods or low-involvement services. However, little prior research exists examining COO effects and brand positioning for high involvement services and for health care specifically. This paper makes a unique contribution by filling this gap.

Global Versus Local Consumer Culture Positioning in a Transitional Market: Understanding the Influence of Consumer Nationalism

ABSTRACTTo shed cultural insights on the complex interplay between globalization and local ideologies, this study presents an online experiment that tested the comparative effects of global and local consumer culture positioning strategies in China. Reflecting the prevailing trend of nationalism around the globe, the study findings highlight the power of consumer nationalism on driving the effects of these culture-oriented positioning strategies. Furthermore, self-brand connection was found to be a critical mediator of the effects of consumer nationalism on brand evaluation. Based on the findings, this study provides strategic guidelines for both domestic and global brands to craft culturally relevant campaigns that capitalize on the growing trend of consumer nationalism in transitioning markets such as China.

“Seeing is being”: Consumer culture and the positioning of premium cars in China

Researchers recognize the indispensable role of inwardly vs. outwardly-focused social identities as predictors of consumers' attitudes toward local vs. global brand positioning. Extant studies typically report symmetric assimilative identity effects, meaning that consumers high on national/ethnic identity favor brands with a local (vs. global) consumer culture positioning, and vice-versa for consumers high on an outward (e.g., cosmopolitan) identity disposition. Such identity outcomes may not be generalizable, but rather, be affected by the specific consumption context as well as the individual trait of consumer need for uniqueness (NFU). Focusing on the Chinese premium car market, our experimental study consistently supported assimilative effects for the role played by ethnic identity. For cosmopolitanism however, such effects only held for low NFU consumers, whereas contrastive identity effects emerged for high NFU consumers. These results challenge some findings reported in the literature. Implications of these asymmetric identity effects for marketing theory and practice are discussed.

The Influence of Regulatory Focus on Global Consumption Orientation and Preference for Global versus Local Consumer Culture Positioning

Firms increasingly employ global and local consumer culture positioning strategies (GCCP/LCCP), but understanding of the drivers that underlie consumer responses to such strategies is limited, leaving firms with little guidance on when to choose one strategy over another. To shed light on consumer preference for GCCP versus LCCP, the authors examine the effects of regulatory focus (promotion and prevention orientation) and global consumption orientation (GCO) on preference for GCCP/LCCP. They report the results of three studies: the first is based on a survey with samples drawn from the United States and China, and the second and third are behavioral designs manipulating situational promotion and prevention regulatory focus. The findings suggest that promotion focus is positively related to GCO and prevention focus is negatively related to GCO. Furthermore, the authors find that GCO is positively related to a preference for GCCP. Thus, this research offers a unique perspective by introducing regulatory focus to the GCCP literature, identifying GCO as an important mediator, and demonstrating that regulatory focus can be situationally activated.

Do Global Brands Use Similar Executional Styles Across Cultures? A Comparison of U.S. and Japanese Television Advertising

A major development in global marketing research is the evolution of global consumer culture theory and the notion that global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) strategies can be effective across markets. This study compares the content of a large sample of U.S. versus Japanese television advertising and looks at several executional variables (timing and counting variables) used in prior studies to explore whether global brands use more similar executions across the United States and Japan in comparison with local brands. Results indicate fewer differences for global brands on these dimensions. This pattern of results appears to be consistent with the notion that the use of GCCP strategies aimed at responding to the trend toward global consumer culture have taken hold and that for global brands it is more possible to standardize executions, in addition to strategy, than was the case in the past. However, results suggest that the amount of time that visuals are on screen is more difficult to standardize than other elements of the ad, and that ads for services show somewhat more similarities than ads for physical products. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Strategic PPL Effects of GCCP (Global Consumer Culture Positioning) : A Focus on the Moderating Role of Susceptibility to Global Consumer Culture

Strategic PPL Effects of GCCP (Global Consumer Culture Positioning) : A Focus on the Moderating Role of Susceptibility to Global Consumer Culture

Global Consumer Culture Positioning: The Use of Global Consumer Culture Positioning Appeals Across Four European Countries

This study proposes a framework of advertising appeals which could be used to express global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) strategy in advertising. The paper examines the use of such appeals in print advertising from four European countries comparing 847 advertisements for durable and non-durable goods from Poland, Hungary, Ireland and the UK. Contrary to expectations, GCCP appeals were more often used in advertisements for non-durable goods than durable goods. The study confirmed the expectation that GCCP appeals would be more frequently used in advertising in less developed markets than in more developed markets. The proposed framework of GCCP appeals may be useful to practitioners wishing to use this positioning strategy. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Euromarketing on July 2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.9768/0023.03.059

A Multi-Country Examination Of Hard-Sell and Soft-Sell Advertising

<h3>ABSTRACT</h3> Prior research has revealed that advertisements utilizing a global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) strategy more often adopt soft-sell (indirect and image-based) rather than hard-sell (direct and information-based) appeals. However, little empirical research has examined consumer preferences for soft-sell versus hard-sell advertising appeals in multi-country settings. This investigation attempted to fill this gap by proposing a multi-country research framework and conducting a pilot study. Soft-sell and hard-sell versions of a print advertisement were pretested with nearly 2,000 subjects in both holistic- and analytical-thinking countries. Findings indicated that employing a soft-sell appeal would be more effective than its hard-sell counterpart in global markets. Results from <i>t</i>-tests collectively indicated that soft-sell advertisements were more likely to generate favorable attitudes and less likely to evoke advertising irritation in most of the countries examined. In closing, the authors discuss theoretical as well as managerial implications, recognize important limitations, and summarize suggestions for future research.

Global Consumer Culture Positioning (GCCP): Reviews and Conceptual Framework

Alden, Steenkamp, and Batra (1999) first proposed Global Consumer Culture Positioning (GCCP) as an alternative advertising strategy comparing with Local Consumer Culture Positioning (LCCP) and Foreign Consumer Culture Positioning (FCCP). Since then, several important studies have been conducted and published in this field. It has become an emerging topic in international marketing research. This article provides a consolidated review of some selected articles related to GCCP and proposed a conceptual framework of GCCP that illustrate the correlations between GCCP and several potential factors.

Responsiveness to Global and Local Consumer Culture Positioning: A Personality and Collective Identity Perspective

Marketers have increasingly employed positioning strategies to appeal to either global or local consumer cultures. However, little is known about the characteristics of consumers most likely to respond to such positioning. The authors find that the collective identities of global and national identification are strongly related to responsiveness to global and local consumer culture positioning (GCCP and LCCP, respectively). The results also show that personality predisposes people to adopt collective identities. The personality traits of openness to experience and agreeableness are significantly related to global and national identity, respectively. On the basis of these findings, the authors present implications with regard to developing GCCP and LCCP strategies that are congruent with consumers’ personality and associated collective identity.

Consumer World-Mindedness and Attitudes toward Product Positioning in Advertising: An Examination of Global versus Foreign versus Local Positioning

In recent years, increasing interest has emerged in examining global consumer culture and its impact on consumer product preferences and choices, lifestyles, and exposure to mass media from other countries. In turn, this has sparked interest in concepts such as consumer world-mindedness and its impact on attitudes and behavior. The current research examines differences in consumer response to advertisements reflecting a global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) versus a foreign consumer culture positioning (FCCP) or a local consumer culture positioning (LCCP) and the relationship with consumer world-mindedness. In Studies 1 and 2, the authors examine the impact of world-mindedness, while controlling for ethnocentric attitudes. In Study 3, they examine the interactions of world-mindedness, international travel, and preference for authenticity. The authors develop several hypotheses and examine them using two surveys of 90 (Study 1) and 100 consumers (Studies 2 and 3) in the Netherlands. The results demonstrate, for example, that advertisements for brands with FCCP and GCCP are nomologically different and evaluated differently.

Consumer culture brand positioning strategies: an experimental investigation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) in comparison to local consumer culture positioning (LCCP) strategies on consumer evaluations of a new unknown brand.Design/methodology/approachUsing an experimental method in the USA and India, the paper examines if the use of such positioning strategies in a print advertisement stimuli influence consumer evaluations of a fictitious brand.FindingsThe results support the effectiveness of such strategies as demonstrated by overall improvement in subjects' attitudinal evaluations of the fictitious brand when GCCP is used relative to the use of LCCP. Furthermore, our results show a moderation effect for subjects' level of belief in global citizenship on the effectiveness of the GCCP strategy. These results were observed across the two samples.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides valuable managerial insights into the potential value of GCCP strategy and offers specific strategic positioning guides to brand managers competing in the global marketplace.Originality/valueWith the emergence of global market segments, it is important to assist brand managers seeking to strengthen their brand's equity in a competitive global marketplace. This paper contributes to the literature on international brand positioning by empirically investigating the usefulness of GCCP as a strategic positioning guide for global marketing managers.

Global Consumer Culture Positioning: Testing Perceptions of Soft-Sell and Hard-Sell Advertising Appeals between U.S. and Japanese Consumers

This study tests the effectiveness of global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) in terms of perceptions of soft-sell (indirect and image-based) and hard-sell (direct and information-based) appeals across markets. The authors draw the theoretical base for the study from previous research, along with a series of recent conceptualizations on culture and branding based on global consumer culture theory. If the same appeal is homogeneously and favorably perceived in different markets, such an appeal should be a good candidate for use as part of a GCCP strategy. From prior research, the authors predict that soft-sell appeals are more similarly perceived across markets than hard-sell appeals. They conduct a quasi-experimental study in the United States and Japan with a general consumer sample. After choosing six advertisements using rigorous content analysis, they examine the perceptions of soft-sell and hard-sell appeals, including attitude toward the ad, believability, irritation, and purchase intention. The results indicate somewhat more homogeneous acceptance of soft-sell appeals but, surprisingly, also show relatively homogeneous acceptance of hard-sell appeals across markets. These findings are suggestive of both types of appeals having the potential to be used as part of a GCCP across the United States and Japan and perhaps other markets.

Global brand positioning and perceptions

Global consumer culture is recognised as a collection of common signs and symbols (e.g. brands) that are understood by significant numbers of consumers in urban markets around the world. International advertising is a powerful driving force of this evolving phenomenon. However, scholars have suggested that more comprehensive theoretical frameworks are needed to better understand international advertising in the global environment. Global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) and perceived brand globalness (PBG) represent two important constructs for studying international advertising in the context of global consumer culture. This review of GCCP and PBG highlights their past application and future potential for advancing international advertising theory, research and practice. It also sheds light on the long-standing standardisation versus adaptation debate.

Brand Positioning through Advertising in Asia, North America, and Europe: The Role of Global Consumer Culture

In this study, the authors examine the emergence of brand positioning strategies in advertising that parallel the growth of the global marketplace. A new construct, global consumer culture positioning (GCCP), is proposed, operationalized, and tested. This construct associates the brand with a widely understood and recognized set of symbols believed to constitute emerging global consumer culture. Study results support the validity of the new construct and indicate that meaningful percentages of advertisements employ GCCP, as opposed to positioning the brand as a member of a local consumer culture or a specific foreign consumer culture. Identification of GCCP as a positioning tool suggests one pathway through which certain brands come to be perceived by consumers as “global” and provides managers with strategic direction in the multinational marketplace.