Understanding Consumers’ Global Brand Preferences

The globalization of marketplaces has fueled significant academic interest in understanding why consumers may prefer global brands over local ones. Researchers have explored various consumer dispositions—such as cosmopolitanism, ethnocentrism, global/local identity, and attitudes toward globalization—as well as brand characteristics like perceived brand globalness.

Perceived brand globalness refers to the extent to which consumers believe that a brand is marketed globally and recognized as such across different countries.

However, empirical findings on the effects of these factors on global brand preference have been inconsistent, leading to challenges in replicating results and applying them in practice. This research aims to clarify these relationships by exploring the interplay between consumer dispositions and perceived brand globalness, offering new insights into what drives consumer responses to global brands.

The Interplay Between Consumer Dispositions and Perceived Brand Globalness

The mixed results in previous studies may stem from a limited understanding of the theoretical mechanisms underlying global brand preferences. This lack of clarity has left researchers and practitioners without clear guidance on how to effectively model global brand phenomena or use consumer dispositions for segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies.

If the true relationship between perceived brand globalness and consumer dispositions is not captured in the chosen model specification, the theoretical utility and managerial relevance of the empirical results would inevitably be questionable.

To address this issue, we revisit the relationships between key consumer dispositions and perceived brand globalness as determinants of consumer responses to brands. This represents the first comprehensive attempt to examine the interplay between these factors in a generalizable way, offering new perspectives on how consumer dispositions influence brand preferences.

Exploring Alternative Theoretical Models

Drawing on selective perception theory and social identity theory, the researchers developed and tested alternative models to understand how consumer dispositions relate to perceived brand globalness and influence brand-related outcomes. These models consider various mechanisms, including moderating, mediating, conditional, and direct effects, to capture the complex dynamics at play.

The study employed a flexible model that simultaneously accounts for these different effects, providing a more nuanced understanding of how consumer dispositions interact with brand globalness perceptions. The researchers conducted multiple conditional process analyses and a single-paper meta-analysis to empirically test these rival model specifications.

Key Findings and Implications for Marketers

The findings raise concerns about the utility of consumer dispositions as predictors of global brand preferences. While consumer dispositions with outgroup orientations (e.g., cosmopolitanism) tend to better capture responses to global brands than those with in-group orientations (e.g., ethnocentrism), the overall impact of these dispositions is less significant than previously thought.

Notably, the results suggest that the direct effects of perceived brand globalness on brand evaluations and purchase intentions are more robust than the effects of consumer dispositions as moderators or mediators. Only one out of ten model estimations supported a moderation specification, despite its intuitive appeal and popularity in previous research.

Only one out of ten model estimations support a moderation specification despite it being one of the most intuitively appealing and thus empirically popular approaches for modeling the effects of consumer dispositions.

For brand managers, these findings suggest that focusing exclusively on consumer segments characterized by strong dispositions, such as cosmopolitans or globalization enthusiasts, may not be the most effective strategy. Both global and local brands can remain competitive without relying solely on niche market segments. Instead, a broader approach that considers the direct influence of brand globalness may offer more consistent results in driving brand preference.

Conclusion

This research challenges some of the conventional wisdom in global branding by highlighting the limited role of consumer dispositions in explaining global brand preferences. While these dispositions do play a role, their impact may be overstated in both academic research and managerial practice. By focusing on the direct effects of perceived brand globalness and considering a broader range of factors, marketers can better understand and influence consumer preferences in the global marketplace.

Disclosure: This blog post was created with partial assistance from AI tools.

Full reference: Diamantopoulos, Adamantios, Vasileios Davvetas, Fabian Bartsch, Timo Mandler, Maja Arslanagic-Kalajdzic, and Martin Eisend (2019), “On the Interplay Between Consumer Dispositions and Perceived Brand Globalness: Alternative Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Assessment,” Journal of International Marketing, 27 (4), 39–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069031X19865527

Cite for: Global brands, perceived brand globalness, consumer dispositions, consumer ethnocentrism, consumer cosmopolitanism, global identity, local identity, globalization attitude, competing theories, PROCESS, rival models (Figure 1), single-paper meta-analysis