International Marketing Strategy ­ 4FE126

PAPER 3

Instructor: Anders Pehrsson

Creating Perceived Brand Globalness Through

Advertising Cues

Adam Åstrand aa222vx@student.lnu.se

Cristina Fernández Hidalgo cf222gn@student.lnu.se

Md Abbas Ali ma223tv@student.lnu.se

Naimul Abd naimulabd@gmail.com

Xiaofang Zhang xiaofang199314 @gmail.com

Abstract

This paper examines changes in the perception of brand globalness when the advertising cues

are modified in order to find which advertising cues are more important in creating a

perception of a global brand. It also aims to find differences between the economic

development, product involvement, personal identification as a global or a local consumer,

and gender for these advertising cues. To achieve this, researchers first conducted an

exploratory study to construct advertising stimulus followed by a conclusive research through

conjoint analysis (CA) to find the relative importance of advertising cues. The results show

that brand slogan and brand spokesperson are the most important cues. In addition, whereas

differences are found between the consumer culture and the economic development, there are

no statistical differences in the relative importance of the cues between gender and product

involvement.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction 5

1.1 Delimitations 7

1.2 Report Structure 7

2 Literature review 8

2.1 Economic Development 8

2.2 Consumer Culture 8

2.3 Product Involvement 9

2.4 Gender 10

3 Framework and Hypotheses 11

3.1 Research framework 11

3.2 Hypotheses 11

4 Method 14

4.1 Exploratory Research Design 14

4.2 Conclusive Research Design 15

4.2.1 CA Model & Methodology 15

4.2.2 CA Factors and Levels 15

4.2.3 CA Presentation Method 17

4.2.4 CA Preference Measure 17

4.2.5 Sample Size and Data Collection 18

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4.2.6 Reliability and Validity 18

4.2.7 Data Analysis 18

5 Results and Discussion 19

5.1 Focus Group Discussions 19

5.2 Conjoint Analysis Experiment 20

5.2.1 Qualification Criteria 20

5.2.2 Demographics 20

5.2.3 Consumer Culture 21

5.2.4 Reliability 21

5.2.5 Relative Importance Scores (CA Experiment) 21

5.2.6 Country Effect ­ Hypothesis 1 22

5.2.7 Consumer Culture Effect ­ Hypothesis 2 22

5.2.8 Product Involvement Effect ­ Hypothesis 3 23

5.2.9 Gender Effect ­ Hypothesis 4 23

6 Conclusions and Contributions 24

7 Limitations, Implications, and Further Research 26

7.1 Research Implications 26

7.2 Limitations and Further Research 26

8 References 27

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1 Introduction Globalization is an important topic in international marketing context (Calvo Porral &

Levy­Mangin, 2015). More and more consumers worldwide are choosing between different

global brands (Schuiling & Kapferer , 2004). Globalization theory in marketing supports that

consumer needs, attitudes, symbols and behaviors are increasingly becoming similar around

the world (Taylor & Okazaki, 2015; Xie et al ., 2015; Swoboda et al ., 2012) and, therefore,

the offer is also getting standardized (Calvo Porral & Levy­Mangin, 2015). The effects from

globalization have led international companies to develop different branding strategies

concerning local and global markets (Talay et al., 2015). Corporations and managers view

global brands as attractive assets (Strizhakova, 2008), and globalness of a brand is not only

seen as a source of manufacturing, marketing, and R&D advantages (Kapferer, 2001; Roth,

1992; Yip, 1995) but also as a basis of high brand equity (Kapferer, 1997; Shocker et al.,

1994).

There are two ways of determining a brand’s globalness: brand’s geographic reach and

consumer perception of brand’s globalness (Taylor & Okazaki, 2015). Global brands are not

the same as multinational brands (Calvo Porral & Levy­Mangin, 2015; Xie et al ., 2015;

Özsomer et al ., 2012; Dimofte et al ., 2010; Sichtmann & Diamantopoulos, 2013). Talay et al .

(2015) define global brands as the ones that are available in all key markets and use

standardization approach with an integrated perspective.

Researchers consider that global brands have more advantages over the local brands (Calvo

Porral & Levy­Mangin, 2015; Xie et al , 2015; Swoboda et al ., 2012; Steenkamp, 2013). In

fact, better perceptions, attitudes and, even, purchase intentions have been found in cross

cultural studies regarding global brands (Dimofte et al. , 2010; Swoboda et al ., 2012;

Steenkamp, 2013). According to Davvetas et al . (2015), customers are willing to pay more

for global brands rather than local ones, which is an indicator of global brand strength.

Therefore, it is desirable for brands to be perceived as global.

While brands that operate internationally with standardized approach may be termed as

global brands, they may not necessarily be perceived by consumers as being global (Swoboda

et al. , 2012). Steenkamp et al. (2003) refers to this as Perceived Brand Globalness (PBG). It

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implies that for a multinational brand to have the advantages of the global brands, it needs to

be perceived as a global brand by the consumers (Swoboda et al. , 2012).

To achieve PBG, Alden et al. (1999) argue that managers should use global symbols in the

name, logo, spokesperson or in the advertisement of the brand. This is because brand

attitudes are affected by a customer’s beliefs and opinions over certain subjects related to the

brand and they can be manipulated by the commercial communication. Two of these cues are

visual stimulus and two of them are verbal stimulus which means that they will deliver the

information in different ways and levels of attention (Myers & Sar, 2013). Swoboda et al .,

(2012) extend the literature by pointing out which cues affect PBG the most.

In a more recent study, De Meulenaer et al. (2015) undertook the challenge of measuring

relative importance of advertising cues in determining PBG in a High Income Market (HIM).

The results showed that advertising slogan was the most important cue. However, the

weakness of De Meulenaer et al. (2015) study is that conclusions have been drawn based on

only one market (HIM, ie., Netherlands) ­ something which is duly pointed out in their

limitations as well. For a more robust understanding, such findings must be derived from an

aggregation of HIM and emerging markets (EM) as both present unique challenges for

brands. For instance, according to Dawar & Chattopadhyay (2002), consumers in EM have

lower familiarity with global brands due to the lack of infrastructure and resources. Therefore

consumers in EM are more likely to choose a local brand compared to a global.

We aim to address this limitation and provide a more robust perspective to this marketing

issue. In this, the paper aims to fill the gap by focusing on both an HIM (Sweden) and an

Emerging Market (EM), i.e., Pakistan, and providing an aggregate estimate of relative

importance of advertising cues in building PBG.

The purpose of this research is to find out the relative importance of advertising cues in

building PBG. In addition, this paper aims to find out how relative importance of advertising

cues varies by economic development, global consumer culture, product involvement, and

gender. Consequently, the research question that this study aims to address is:

RQ: What is the relative importance of advertising cues in achieving the perception of

globalness for a brand?

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1.1 Delimitations

The research focuses on two markets (Sweden and Pakistan) ­ a broader coverage of

countries could increase the generalizability. Secondly, the research covers only two products

(one each for high involvement and low involvement) ­ a broader coverage of products could

yield more representative results as well. Finally, it focuses only on native population of each

country, as knowledge of local language is important to read the local language stimulus.

1.2 Report Structure

Introduction (Chapter 1) presents the topic, background discussion on this, the research

problem, and purpose. Literature review (Chapter 2) summarizes key theoretical

underpinnings on consumer culture, gender, economic development, and product

involvement. Conceptual framework (Chapter 3) provides a view of relationships between

various constructs and a description of hypotheses. Method (Chapter 4) then provides an

overview of research design. Results and discussion section (Chapter 5) presents qualitative

and quantitative analyses. Chapter 6 presents conclusions and contributions and Chapter 7

explains limitations, implications, and advice for further research.

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2 Literature review

2.1 Economic Development

An Emerging Market (EM) as per Sheth (2011) is a country with high level of growth but

with low level of resources and infrastructure. Moreover, consumers in an EM differ from

those in High Income Market (HIM) in terms of heterogeneity. According to Dawar &

Chattopadhyay (2002) consumers in EM have different shopping behaviour due to their

different perspective in brand preferences and they also differentiate between local and

international brands. The source of this distinction originates from the difficulties for

international brands to enter EM due to the lack of infrastructure. Therefore, consumers have

a low familiarity of international brands compared to local brands (Sheth, 2011). According

to Burgess & Steenkamp (2006), consumers in this type of market have lower purchase

intention and are less receivable of brand message. Cui & Liu (2001) argue that there is a

difference in consumers psychographic and demographic profiles even within the EM

countries. Tanusondjaja et al. (2015) argue that infrastructure is the biggest problem of an

EM.

2.2 Consumer Culture

Culture is expanding over its traditional limits of language or countries to establish a new

global meaning (Taylor & Okazaki, 2015). The Global Consumer Culture (GCC) is

composed of these signs, symbols and values that are understood by broad numbers of

customers in the world (Akaka & Alden, 2010; Swoboda et al., 2012; Taylor & Okazaki,

2015). This cultural standardization is mainly a product of the advertising industry in which

the customers can identify themselves as global customers (Akaka & Alden, 2010; Taylor &

Okazaki, 2015). Therefore, there are two main positions when it comes to consumer culture:

global consumer culture and local consumer culture (De Meulenear et al. , 2015). For a brand

to adapt to any of them, it has to identify itself with those signs, symbols and values of the

global culture or those that belong to the local culture (Taylor & Okazaki, 2015). Moreover,

in order to understand the consumer’s orientation vis­a­vis global and local, it is important to

understand the perception that those customers have of global brands. Customers who have a

good perception of global will be more likely to accept the global culture and, therefore,

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global products (Özsomer et al. , 2012). Also, some authors propose that the perceptions over

local and global are not so related to one particular product but to product categories

(Özsomer et al. , 2012; Calvo Porral & Levy­Mangin, 2015). With the exchanges between

different countries, cultures, and individuals increasing, there is a rise of an emerging global

culture (Tadmor & Tetlock, 2006; Arnett, 2002) and in turn this is giving rise to transnational

identity (Craig & Douglas, 2006) or world­minded consumers who are open to engage in

diverse cultural and international experiences (Yegˆenogˆ lu, 2005). Cleveland et al. (2011)

refer to these consumers as cosmopolitans. Strizhakova et al. (2008) have examined this in

detail by studying branded products as a passport to global citizenship and used a three point

scale to measure consumers’ Belief In Global Citizenship (BIGC) which can help identify

consumers who use global brands as a means to identify themselves as global.

2.3 Product Involvement

Consumer product involvement is defined as “perceived relevance of a product class, based

on the consumer’s inherent needs, interests, and values” (Zaichkowsky, 1985, p.345).

Vaughn (1980) classifies products into high involvement and low involvement categories

based on a variety of factors including cost, social value, consumer interest, informational

handling. High involvement products lead consumers to search more information and use a

systematic information processing strategy for making their purchase decision. In high

involvement situations, customers are drawn to verbal claims and product attributes are

relatively more important (Chaiken et al. , 1989; Johar & Sirgy, 1991 ; Garretson & Burton,

2005). This indicates that in advertising, slogan and brand name will more strongly influence

the PBG in case of high involvement products. On the other hand, the low involvement

products are more routine goods which lead consumers to use simpler decision rules

(Chaiken et al. , 1989). Low­involvement customers normally think less about the message

content. They give an evaluation which is based more on peripheral cues such as brand logo

and spokesperson (Meyers­Levy & Malavia, 1999, Dens & De Pelsmacker, 2010). Also,

because the characteristics of the high involvement products are closely compared and

analysed, the origin of the product plays a fundamental role in consumer decision making (de

Tavares Canto Guina & de Moura Engracia Giraldi, 2014). Therefore, product involvement

categories can influence consumer PBG.

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2.4 Gender

The perception of the brand comes from responses related to the psychology and from

functional or cognitive responses (Swoboda et al. , 2012). Some authors relate the brand

perceptions to socio­demographic variables such as gender, age, education, income and

family size (Shukla et al. , 2013). In addition, Nair & Mohandas (2012) show in their study in

India (an emerging market) that strong gender differences can be found in purchasing and

perceiving global and local brands. Shukla et al . (2013) defend that women are more

involved in purchase activities and have a higher tendency to explore brands. Yoon & Kim

(2014) add to the issue the social interactions establishing different roles for males and

females from a very young age that are later on related to different purchase behaviors.

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3 Framework and Hypotheses

3.1 Research framework

This research studies perceived brand globalness (PBG) as a dependent variable with

advertising cues (brand name, brand logo, brand slogan, brand spokesperson, and brand

website) as independent variables. This relationship has been studied across four moderators,

i.e., economic development (HIM / Sweden and EM / Pakistan), consumer culture (Local and

Global), product involvement (Low and High), and gender (Male and Female).

Fig. 1: Research Framework

3.2 Hypotheses

Taking over the previous theory and considering the moderators of this study that can be

observed in the research framework, hypotheses are discussed hereunder.

Table 1: Hypotheses

Moderator Background Hypotheses over the advertising cues

Economic development

The perceptions and purchase intentions of global brands in EM are different from the HIM

H1a: Brand Name has different relative importance in HIM and EM

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(Tanusondjaja et al., 2015). In EMs, consumers are more familiar with local brands than global brands due to the lack of infrastructure (Sheth, 2011)

Therefore,

H1: As a determinant of PBG,

H1b: Brand Logo has different relative importance in HIM and EM

H1c: Brand Slogan has different relative importance in HIM and EM

H1d: Brand Spokesperson has different relative importance in HIM and EM

H1e: Brand Website has different relative importance in HIM and EM

Consumer culture

Consumer culture can be related to local and global cultures and affects the perceptions and the purchase behavior. Those brands which adapt their image to their target customer culture will be more efficient (Özsomer et al. , 2012). Consumers can view branded products as a passport to global citizenship (Strizhakova et al. 2008) which leads to global thinking consumers versus local thinking consumer groups. Therefore,

H2: As a determinant of PBG,

H2a: Brand Name has different relative importance in Local and Global thinking consumers

H2b: Brand Logo has different relative importance in Local and Global

thinking consumers

H2c: Brand Slogan has different relative importance in Local and Global thinking consumers

H2d: Brand Spokesperson has different relative importance in Local and Global thinking consumers

H2e: Brand Website has different relative importance in Local and Global thinking consumers

Product involvement

Product involvement divides the products in two categories depending on the effort that the consumers put on the decision­making process

H3a: Brand Name has different relative importance in High

Involvement and Low Involvement product categories

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(Chaiken et al. , 1989). High and low involvement products will determine the attentional focus of the customer when evaluating advertisements and purchasing these products (Garretson & Burton, 2005; Dens & De Pelsmacker, 2010). Therefore,

H3: As a determinant of PBG,

H3b: Brand Logo has different relative importance in High Involvement and Low Involvement product categories

H3c: Brand Slogan has different relative importance in High

Involvement and Low Involvement product categories

H3d: Brand Spokesperson has different relative importance in High

Involvement and Low Involvement product categories

H3e: Brand Website has different relative importance in High

Involvement and Low Involvement product categories

Gender Socio­demographic variables affect in different levels the PBG (Shukla et al., 2013). Gender and the social roles influence the involvement over the purchase and the products (Shukla et al., 2013; Yoon and Kim, 2014).

Therefore,

H1: As a determinant of PBG,

H4a: Brand Name has different relative importance among Males and

Females

H4b: Brand Logo has different relative importance among Males and Females

H4c: Brand Slogan has different relative importance among Males and

Females

H4d: Brand Spokesperson has different relative importance among Males and

Females

H4e: Brand Website has different relative importance among Males and

Females

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4 Method

Research design charts out the direction of a research project in line with the purpose of the

research (Aaker et al. , 2011). Depending on the purpose, researcher may employ exploratory

or conclusive research design with latter being further divided into descriptive and causal

research designs (Malhotra, 2010). This study employs elements from both research designs.

4.1 Exploratory Research Design

Exploratory research design is aimed at gaining deep understanding into marketing issues and

opportunities (Halman, 2002). It is a good starting point in research projects where the

researcher lacks clear understanding of the situation (Malhotra, 2010). In this project,

exploratory research was used to develop clear understanding on choice of celebrities and

products for high and low involvement scenarios and balancing these choices with the

countries to be studied in later phase of the research.

The authors employed qualitative research in this phase because, according to Strauss &

Corbin (1998), it is the best means to capture consumer attitudes, motives, and behaviors in

detail. While Malhotra (2010) outlines a range of qualitative methods that can be used by a

researcher, we used focus groups, which according to Bloor et al. (2001), are the most

popular qualitative research technique. In a focus group, respondents are encouraged and

controlled to focus on a particular issue (Saunders et al., 2009). We conducted two focus

groups ­ one with Swedish nationals and another with Pakistani nationals, each with five

participants and a focus group moderator. Two pairs of famous celebrities (one local and one

global in each pair) were presented:

1. Swedish focus group: Mikael Persbrandt and Tom Cruise (Pair 1) ­ Andreas Wilson

and Leonardo DiCaprio (Pair 2)

2. Pakistani focus group: Hamayun Saeed and Tom Cruise (Pair 1) ­ Shaan Shahid and

Leonardo DiCaprio (Pair 2)

Two pairs of products, based on their involvement levels, were presented:

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1. Cookies (low involvement) and watches (high involvement) ­ Pair 1 for both Swedish

and Pakistani focus groups

2. Soft drinks (low involvement) and mobile phones (high involvement) ­ Pair 2 for both

Swedish and Pakistani focus groups

To aid the discussion, a presentation with pictures was shown to the participants.

Spokespersons were checked for recognition and neutrality and products were checked for

appropriateness in high or low involvement purchase situations.

4.2 Conclusive Research Design

This study employs Conjoint Analysis (CA) as the method to measure the relative importance

of advertising cues in determining PBG. CA derives importance that consumers place on

various attributes and their levels by presenting them various profiles of these attributes and

their levels (Malhotra, 2010). The assumption behind CA is that consumers evaluate various

stimuli as a bundle of attributes (Srinivasan & Park, 1997; Naude & Buttle, 2000, Carroll &

Green, 1995; Green & Krieger, 1995).

4.2.1 CA Model & Methodology

The most important consideration is to have all key attributes reflected in a study (Alpert,

1971). In this research, the advertising cues were derived from prior research. Of the three

approaches of conducting CA as per Hair (2010), traditional approach was selected because

adaptive approach is appropriate in case of large number of attributes and CBC is a

complicated approach suited for incorporating interaction­effects.

4.2.2 CA Factors and Levels

Hair (2010) stresses that measures for a CA experiment should both be communicable and

actionable. Following is a broad structure of factors and levels (Table 2).

Table 2: CA Factors and Levels

CA Factors / Attributes

Number of Levels

(NOL)

Swedish Study Pakistani Study

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Brand Name 2 Word “Global”

Word “ SW ”

pre­fixed to product category name

Word “Global”

Word “ PK ”

pre­fixed to product category name

Brand Logo 2 Globe Symbol

Swedish Flag

Globe Symbol

Pakistani Flag

Brand Slogan 2 Mobile Phones

Sveriges bästa mobil

Best mobile phone for the whole planet

Soft Drinks

Den svenska smaken

A whole new world of taste for you

Mobile Phones

Best mobile phone for the whole planet

Soft Drinks

A whole new world of taste for you

Brand Spokesperson 2 Andreas Wilson

Leonardo DiCaprio

Shaan Shahid

Leonardo DiCaprio

Brand Website 2 Ending with .se

Ending with .com

Ending with .com

Ending with .com.pk

All factors had same number of levels (NOL) as increasing levels of one factor may

artificially increase its importance in a CA experiment ( Verlegh et al. , 2002; Krieger et al.,

1998; Orme, 1998). The minimum number of CA profiles to be tested can be derived by

subtracting number of factors (NOF) from total NOL and adding 1 (Hair, 2010). Our

minimum profile requirement was 10­5+1 = 6. SPSS Orthogonal Design utility (SPSS, 2015)

was used to generate a fractional factorial design (aka orthogonal array representing the main

effects). Four separate orthogonal arrays were generated: 2 countries x 2 product involvement

levels (Table 3).

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Table 3: CA profiles for HIM (Sweden) and EM (Pakistan)

4.2.3 CA Presentation Method

The study uses full­profile presentation method in line with Hair (2010) who points out that it

is appropriate in case of 6 or fewer factors over trade­off or pairwise methods. Advertising

cues combinations from orthogonal array were developed into CA profiles (32 draft ads) and

presented to respondents one by one. For instance, Profile 5 from Sweden for high

involvement product category, showed a global spokesperson (Leonardo DiCaprio) with a

global logo (world symbol), local name (SE mobiles), local website address (ending in .se),

and with local slogan (Sveriges bästa mobil). Four sets of profiles were used: respondents in

each country rated 8 high involvement and 8 low involvement profiles / ads.

4.2.4 CA Preference Measure

Input data for CA can be non­metric (rank order) or metric (rating) with latter being more

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popular (Malhotra, 2010). This study measures CA input for PBG on 5­point rating scale

adapted from Steenkamp et al . (2003).

4.2.5 Sample Size and Data Collection

CA can estimate utilities even with a single respondent (Green & Wind, 1975). Hair (2010)

mentions 50 as absolute minimum sample for a CA study. Our final sample size is 151 ­ 76

from Pakistan and 75 from Sweden. Survey is a leading method for primary data collection

(ESOMAR, 2004). Malhotra (2010) classifies surveys into: telephone, personal interviewing,

mall interviewing, and electronic interviewing through self­administration. This study uses

self­administered questionnaires which are an appropriate method where sample is not

located close to the researchers or is very dispersed (Saunders et al. , 2009). Web­based

sample was collected as it is fast replacing traditional methods (Pineau & Slotwiner, 2003)

and can suitable for administering full­profile CA experiment (Orme et al ., 1998).

4.2.6 Reliability and Validity

Researchers use various approaches to assess the validity of their research instruments (Aaker

et al ., 2011). Measures for this study were derived through established theoretical

frameworks to ensure validity. Moreover, exploratory research was conducted to ensure

stimulus items were appropriate for the survey. Finally, to ensure face validity in line with

Aaker et al ., (2011), questionnaire was pretested. Based on four pretests, questionnaire flow,

content, and stimulus were revised. Moreover, the 3 point PBG scale was reduced to 1 point

scale to reduce respondent fatigue and improve completion rate. In line with Hair (2010)

recommendation of using goodness­of­fit measures like Spearman’s rho or Kendall’s tau

(non­metric) and simple Pearson (metric), we used Pearson r as a measure of reliability.

4.2.7 Data Analysis

In the qualitative phase, interviews were first transcribed and later content analyzed. In the

survey phase, data was analyzed using IBM SPSS software. SPSS is a widely used program

to analyse statistical data by university researchers specially in social sciences (Brace et al. ,

2009). For CA, SPSS Conjoint Analysis procedure was used.

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5 Results and Discussion

5.1 Focus Group Discussions

Herein, we discuss the key results from the two focus groups conducted among Pakistani and

Swedish nationals. The Pakistani group was certain of which products were more appropriate

for the questionnaire. They quickly dismissed the pair composed of cookies and watches

because they considered cookies a socially important product related to the tea consumption

and the watches as not being so popular or necessary product in their home country where ­

they said ­ cheap replicas could be bought easily. Instead they regarded the product pair of

soft drinks and mobile phones as very appropriate because there are several local and global

brands of these products operating in Pakistan.

There was less differences in the Swedish focus group in terms of products. Participants

agreed that soft drinks and cookies were low involvement products and indicated that they

cared less about the cookies than about soft drinks. For the high involvement products they

recognized both watches and mobile phone as high involvement products. Nevertheless, they

indicated that there was slightly more involvement with the watches. However, the

differences in both high involvement and low involvement products were not as pronounced

as were noticed in the Pakistani focus group.

We had the choice to pick different product pairs for Pakistan and Sweden, but this could

confound the results of the study. Hence, to keep the products consistent between the two

groups in the survey, we picked soft drinks (low involvement) and mobile phones (high

involvement). From our perspective, we also see that celebrities are more commonly used as

spokespersons in soft drink advertisement compared to cookie advertisement ­ otherwise our

result might be affected by the irrelevance of the celebrity endorsement.

The second key aspect explored in the focus group was the awareness, neutrality, and

relevance of the celebrities. Before the focus groups, we narrowed down the celebrity choices

as under,

Global celebrities: Tom Cruise (option 1), Leonardo DiCaprio (option 2)

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Local celebrities Sweden: Mikael Persbrandt (option 1) and Andreas Wilson (option

2)

Local celebrities Pakistan: Hamayun Saeed (option 1) and Shaan Shahid (option 2)

Option 1 and option 2 were formed as pairs and discussed with the focus group participants.

In Pakistani sample, participants could not relate clearly to Hamayun Saeed and he was

mixed with some celebrities from India ­ hence, Shaan was a better option. Moreover,

Leonardo DiCaprio had high recognition. So the Shaan and Leonardo DiCaprio pair was the

choice based on the group. In Swedish sample, Mikael Persbrandt was not considered

suitable for the low involvement product category, especially cookies. Moreover, Tom Cruise

was seen as a somewhat controversial celebrity based on his Scientology association. Hence,

Andreas Wilson and Leonardo DiCaprio pair emerged as the one to be used in subsequent

research.

5.2 Conjoint Analysis Experiment

5.2.1 Qualification Criteria

Primary qualification criterion for this research is whether a person is a citizen of the country

in which the study has been conducted. Of the total 151 interviews, 76 were conducted in

Pakistan and 75 in Sweden, and all participants were natives of respective countries. The

decision of targeting natives was deliberate as language in brand slogan was local (Swedish

in Sweden and Urdu in Pakistan) and rather than assessing the language knowledge as a

condition, it was deemed expedient to focus on natives.

5.2.2 Demographics

The sample has a fairly even coverage of gender (54% male, 46% female) and this is

maintained in the sub­samples for both countries. In terms of age, majority of respondents

belong to 18­29 years age group with 30­39 age group being the second most represented.

There are some differences between samples from two countries, for instance, in Pakistan

there are 6 interviews in under 18 years age group while none in this age group in Sweden;

moreover, we find a more even coverage of age groups other than 18­29 years in Pakistan.

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Three­fourths of the sample has university education and there are some differences by

country as well. The basic education level is reported only in Pakistan.

5.2.3 Consumer Culture

This was measured through a three item three­point belief in global citizenship (BIGC) scale.

The summated score of the scale was used to create a dichotomous variable wherein

respondents with mean score equal to or higher than the summated scale mean were

classified in global group (see themselves as global citizens) and others in local group (see

themselves as local citizens). In the final sample, 40% belong to the local group and 60% to

the global subgroup.

5.2.4 Reliability

The derived goodness­of­fit (Person ‘r’) for four profiles used in CA is robust: Pakistan

Hi­Involvement (0.999, p<0.01), Pakistan Low­Involvement (0.980, p<0.01), Sweden

Hi­Involvement (0.999, p<0.01), and Sweden Low­Involvement (0.994, p<0.01).

Malhotra (2010) also mentions a method of split­half reliability testing wherein sample is

randomly split into two halves and resulting loadings are compared to assess consistency

across sample. The sum of differences between the two sub­sample CA profiles is found to

be between 0.25% (slogan) and 2.2% (brand logo) which indicates high consistency. Finally,

the multi­item BIGC scale has a reported cronbach’s alpha statistic of 0.731 which is within

acceptable limit as proposed by Hair (2010).

5.2.5 Relative Importance Scores (CA Experiment)

The research question of this paper aimed at finding the most important advertising cues

regarding a sample of two different countries with different kinds of products according to

their involvement. Therefore, CA has been aggregated at the overall sample level to find out

the answer. The results show that brand slogan has emerged as the most important

advertising cue in determining PBG (37.5% relative importance level), followed by brand

spokesperson (28.4%). Brand name (14.2%), brand logo (11.5%), and brand website (9.7%)

are relatively less important ­ together these three add up to a third of relative importance of

cues. This is only partially in line with the theory which indicates that visual cues are more

effective in commercials (Myers & Sar, 2013; Garretson & Burton, 2005). Moreover, one

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reason for brand slogan to emerge on top could be that it’s the only variable where language

has been varied and language could have a significant role in globalness perception (De

Meulenear et al. , 2015).

5.2.6 Country Effect ­ Hypothesis 1

Hypothesis one was related to the influence that the country can have in the perceptions of

brand globalness through advertising cues. The results of this hypotheses show that some

significant differences can be found across countries (Table 4 ) . Brand spokesperson and

brand website show significant differences when compared across Pakistan and Sweden

(statistically significant at p<0.05). Rest of the differences are not statistically significant.

Brand spokesperson is more than twice as important in Pakistan as in Sweden ­ in fact, this is

the most important advertising cue in determining PBG in Pakistan. Moreover, the theory

established that in EM the perceived differences between local and global are greater than in

HIM, therefore the comparison between local and global celebrities was likely to be more

noticed in Pakistan (Dawar & Chattopadhyay, 2002) . On the other hand, brand website is

more than three times as important in determining PBG of a brand in Sweden than in

Pakistan ­ however, website, on an overall basis, is not a very important factor.

Table 4: Advertising cues relative importance according to Country

5.2.7 Consumer Culture Effect ­ Hypothesis 2

The second hypothesis of this study was focused on the differences between the local and

global consumer culture (Table 4 ) . For this study, sample of both countries and both types of

products was aggregated, leaving a sample of 122 local and 180 global profiles. Significant

CA importance differences are noticed across two advertising cues, namely, brand slogan and

brand name (p<0.05) across consumer culture. Brand name is more important among global

22

respondents whereas brand slogan is more important among local. Studying global

consumers, it can be seen that both brand slogan and brand spokesperson are important to

almost similar extent. Their identification with certain symbols and values might have lead

those who identify themselves as global or local to choose global or local languages in the

brand name and the brand slogan, as it is an important piece of their culture (Taylor &

Okazaki, 2015; Strizhakova et al. , 2008).

Table 5: Advertising cues relative importance according to Consumer Culture

5.2.8 Product Involvement Effect ­ Hypothesis 3

Although the theory showed the possibility of finding differences in the perception of the

advertising cues across product involvement levels (high and low), the results of the CA

show no significant differences across product involvement levels for any of the advertising

cues tested at p<0.05 and all the hypotheses are rejected.

5.2.9 Gender Effect ­ Hypothesis 4

Whereas, theory reveals that different perceptions and behaviours were to be expected from

each gender (Shukla et al. , 2013; Yoon & Kim, 2014), no statistically significant differences

were found across gender of the study participants for any of the advertising cues tested at

p<0.05, rejecting all the hypotheses.

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6 Conclusions and Contributions

This paper’s aim is to answer what is the relative importance of advertising cues in achieving

the perception of globalness for a brand. We conducted a two­phased research that included a

preliminary qualitative research to get insights into the topic and stimulus and a confirmatory

CA experiment to rank the advertising cues in terms of relative importance.

As can be seen in the results, the two most important cues that determine the PBG are brand

slogan with 37.5% of overall relative importance and brand spokesperson with 29.4%. The

rest of the cues show similar importance in the aggregate sample, much lower than the first

two. These results are consistent across gender and product involvement levels.

Relative importance of brand slogan varies with the consumer culture. It has higher relative

importance among consumers with local mindset which may be due to the use of local

language in which this advertising cue is written. Moreover, brand spokesperson derives its

high aggregate importance rating from it being the most important advertising cue in EM

(Pakistan) ­ its importance rating is less than half in HIM (Sweden).

Among the relatively less important advertising cues, brand website has received almost 3

times higher relative importance score in HIM (Sweden). Finally, brand name is seen to be

more important among consumers with global mindset. Importance of brand logo is

consistent across all contexts.

The aggregate findings from our research have been found to be similar to the previous

research by De Meulenaer et al. (2015) where the advertising copy ­ partially composed of

the brand slogan ­ and the brand spokesperson are the most important factors in this order. In

addition, their study over the consumer culture also showed differences on the brand name

which are found in our study as well. Finally, their study over product involvement showed

differences across brand name and brand spokesperson while our study found no differences.

The extension of research to EM (Pakistan) has brought in new insights: brand spokesperson

is more than twice as important in EM than in HIM and brand website (a relatively less

important cue) is more than 3 times more important in HIM than in EM.

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Our research also had the purpose of finding new insights regarding whether there could be

differences in terms of gender in the importance of the advertising cues to determine the

perception of globalness for a brand. In this case, no differences were found, establishing that

the gender has no effect on the perception of the cues as more local or global.

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7 Limitations, Implications, and Further Research

7.1 Research Implications

Our research finds important differences between HIMs and EMs ­ something which is

missing in prior theory. Brand spokesperson is much more important in achieving PBG in an

EM ­ this means, managers in EM should focus on having the right spokespeople for their

brand to achieve a perception of globalness. In contrast, while website has almost a

non­existent importance in EMs, in HIMs it is relatively more important and managers in

HIMs can use it as a tool to influence PBG of their brands. Finally, our research establishes

that gender and product involvement have no influence in determining PBG.

7.2 Limitations and Further Research

This research relies on using CA by creating hypothetical products as stimulus, another way

of doing this could be selecting actual brands operating in various categories and countries

and following a different research design altogether while still staying close to the topic of

how to create PBG. In addition, to increase realism, other types of stimulus (audio or video

ads) may also be employed ­ though the creation of such stimulus may need much more time

and effort and require professional expertise in making ads.

The research has employed a convenience sampling technique. It is recommended that

probability sample be collected for more accurate findings. Moreover, it is recommended to

have at least 200 sample coverage per market of interest. With a 200 sample base, a deeper

exploration can also be made across the various sub­groups of the sample (e.g. differences

between female consumers only in Pakistan). This research could help find more specific

insights about the most effective way to achieve PBG.

To provide a more robust picture, it is recommended that at least 2 HIMs and 2 EMs be

selected and analyzed over the same variables to have a more reliable base / spread in

sample.

26

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