A Cross-culture Study Of Brand Perceptions

This dissertation provides an analysis of how culture differences affect people's perceptions towards the same brand as well as when people come from their culture of origin to another different dominant culture, how their brand perceptions change. This topic was chosen because although there are tremendous studies on cross-culture and acculturation issues, however, litter research has been done in the marketing filed to combine these two concepts together and relate to the people's brand perceptions. This is very important for the marketers, especially when introducing a global brand into a new market, to be aware of the cultural and social meaning of the brand in this market - whether the consumers here perceive the brand same or not compared to the home market. This dissertation is also based on my dissertation of Masters of Marketing received from the UK, together with the Chinese situation, discussed and compared the brand perception among Chinese and British consumers.The research on people's brand perceptions provides a valuable insight by employing a qualitative research method that twelve interviews were conducted with three groups of people– local Chinese people, Chinese people who have stayed in the UK for at least 5 years and local British people. Their views toward the brand: Starbucks imply how culture affects people's brand perception in different culture backgrounds.The findings of this research support the broad theoretical claims in terms of brand perceptions, culture differences, globalization, anti-globalization and acculturation. Finally, this research discusses its marketing implication in terms of how to take fully advantage of culture-affected brand perception in order to enter into a new global market.