The Effects Of Brand-country Connection On Consumers' Purchase Intention

Topics about global branding globalization and country of origin effects have always been the focus of marketing,while brand-country connection is the fad research direction of these topics.Based on this,this research proposes and verifies that this core concept can be further subdivided into two dimensions,country-to-brand association and brand-to-country association.More specifically,this research explores their effects on consumers' brand purchase intention through perceived brand globalness and perceived brand localness.The research chooses eight Chinese brands from multiple categories as study objects and adopts survey to collect data.Structural Equation Modeling method is used to verify the basic conceptual framework,and multi-group analysis is employed to differentiate the moderating mechanism.The results show that country-to-brand association directly enhances perceived brand globalness,while brand-to-country association directly enhances perceived brand localness.The effect of country-to-brand association on perceived brand localness and brand-to-country association on perceived brand globalness are not significant.Besides,country-to-brand association positively affects brand purchase likelihood via perceived brand globalness,while brand-to-country association positively affects brand purchase likelihood via perceived brand localness.More specifically,perceived brand globalness fully mediates the relationship between country-to-brand association and brand purchase likelihood,while perceived brand localness acts as a partial mediator in the relationship between brand-to-country association and brand purchase likelihood.Finally,product category functionality moderates the relationship between country-tobrand association and perceived brand globalness.The theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows: first,this research inherits and develops the concept and theory of brand-country connection,and empirically tests its effect on brand purchase intention;second,this research distinguishes the mechanism of brand-country connection in different dimensions,reconstructing theories of country-of-origin and country image;third,this research finds new antecedents of perceived brand globalness and perceived brand localness,enriching global branding literature.In practice,this study not only provides brands with two developing paths of globalization and localization,but also gives suggestions for China to build national brand and enhance national brand image.