Chun Shui Tang and Bubbleology:The Effect of Culture Position Country of Origin and Product Knowledge on Brand Authenticity

  • 莫 博銘

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Thomas L Friedman’s book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty First Century indicated that boundaries between countries had been disappearing rapidly Globalization would benefit human beings and would become the main-stream in future While the world undergoes the globalization process new obstacles follow From the brand management perspective this thesis asks how globalization will affect brand authenticity Particularly how will brand cultural theme position strategy affect brand authenticity? Will country of origin effect which resulted from global sourcing influence brand authenticity? How do consumers from diversified culture background perceive brand authenticity? In two experimental studies this thesis finds that positioning a brand culture theme to be consistent with the original culture of a product category increases perceived brand quality; however it will be more vulnerable to country of origin effect On the other hand country of origin has less effect on a brand that is positioned based on a globally accepted cultural ideology Interestingly positioning a brand theme to be associated with an original culture ideology or a globally accepted culture ideology does not influence perceived category authenticity neither nor brand authenticity Finally consumers with high product category knowledge are more susceptible to original brand authenticity than novice consumers; however the experts are more capable to interpret brand authenticity
Date of Award2015 Feb 9
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorJu-Faye Kao (Supervisor)

Cite this

'