Research On The Effect Of Multinational Brands’ Culturally Mixed Design Of Products On Consumers’ Purchase Intention

Cultural mixing strategy has now become a widely adopted approach by many multinational brands in their marketing practices in host countries.Multinational brands are trying to shorten the emotional distance between the brand and Chinese consumers by incorporating Chinese elements into their own image or products,thus increasing brand recognition and appeal.However,despite the enthusiasm of brands to launch culturally mixed products over the past decade,the actual marketing impact of these products in the market is unpredictable and often receives mixed reviews.Therefore,it is necessary to study the mechanism of the influence of cultural mixing strategy on consumers’purchase intention,to help multinational brands improve consumers’evaluation and purchase intention of culturally mixed products,and to provide suggestions for localized marketing practices of multinational brands.This research firstly combed through the relevant literature,and then divided the Chinese cultural elements incorporated into culturally mixed products into different temporal dimensions（traditional cultural elements vs.modern cultural elements）and different carriers（material cultural elements vs.immaterial cultural elements）to explore and compare the changes in consumers’purchase intention when multinational brands incorporated different types of Chinese cultural elements into culturally mixed product designs.The brand type（trendy brand vs.casual brand）was then added to the model as a moderating variable to form a 2×2×2 experiment to test the moderating effect of brand type on the above main effect.At the same time,this research investigates the mediating role of local iconness in the relationship between culturally mixed products and consumers’purchase intentions,and the moderating role of consumers’local identity level on the relationship between local iconness and purchase intentions.The survey questionnaires were also designed,and the main conclusions drawn from the empirical analysis and hypothesis testing of the collected data are as follows.The main findings from the empirical analysis and hypothesis testing of the collected data are as follows.（1）Culturally mixed products with different types of Chinese cultural elements have different influences on consumers’purchase intention.The purpose of Experiment 1 was to test the main effect,and a total of 216 valid samples were collected.In this study,a 2（traditional vs.modern）×2（material vs.immaterial）experimental scenario simulation was conducted to explore the effect of adopting these four different types of cultural elements in culturally mixed product design on consumers’purchase intention.According to the results of the one-way ANOVA,the effects of the four different independent variables,traditional×material,traditional×immaterial,modern×material and modern×immaterial,on purchase intention showed significant differences at the 0.01 level,with the traditional immaterial cultural elements having the most positive effect on purchase intention.（M traditional×material=5.45,M traditional×immaterial=5.62,M modern×material=4.87,M modern×immaterial=5.10,p=0.000）.Further analysis of the specific level of differences between the experimental groups by post-hoc multiple analyses showed that the use of traditional cultural elements for culturally mixed product design led to higher purchase intention among consumers compared to the use of modern cultural elements.（2）The mediating effect of local iconness in the influence of culturally mixed products on consumers’purchase intention.Experiment 2 mainly explored the mediating effect of this study,and 208 valid samples were collected.The mediating effect analysis of the influence of traditional material element combination on purchase intention through local iconness shows that BOOTLLCI is 0.161,and BOOTULCI is 0.400.In the analysis of the mediating effect of traditional immaterial element combination on purchase intention through local iconness,the BOOTLLCI is 0.203 and the BOOTULCI is 0.455.The intermediate effect confidence interval BOOTLLCI=0.078 and BOOTULCI=0.265 for the modern substance experiment scenario.The corresponding BOOTLLCI of the modern immaterial experimental scenario is 0.151,and BOOTULCI is 0.371.In the mediating effect of the above four experimental groups,the 95%confidence interval does not contain 0,indicating that local iconness plays a partial mediating role in each group.（3）Local identity will strengthen the positive influence of local iconness on consumers’purchase intention.Experiment 3 mainly tested the moderating effect of native identity,and a total of456 valid samples were collected.The regression coefficient of the interaction term of local iconness*local identity is 0.117,the t is 4.123,and p=0.000<0.01.The significance test indicates that local identity positively moderates the relationship between local iconness and purchase intention.（4）Brand type plays a moderating role in the influence of culturally mixed products on consumer purchase intentions.Test 4 mainly examined the moderating effect of brand type,and a total of 329valid samples were collected.In this study,brand type was used as a moderating variable in an experimental scenario simulation of 2（traditional vs.modern）×2（material vs.immaterial）×2（trendy brand vs.casual brand）to explore the moderating role of brand type in the influence of culturally mixed product design on consumers’purchase intention.The experimental results showed that the interaction term between cultural element type and brand type showed significance（F=2.883,p=0.036<0.05）.Thus,brand type plays a moderating role in the process of influencing consumers’purchase intention in the culturally mixed product design.Using an independent samples t-test,the analysis yielded a more positive effect of using the product culture mashup strategy for trendy brands compared to casual brands on consumers’purchase intentions(M _{trendy brands}=5.28,M _{casual brands}=4.95,p=0.003).This research explores the changes in consumers’purchase intention and the inner mechanism of action when multinational brands incorporate different types of Chinese cultural elements into culturally mixed product designs.This research academically enriches the product-level research on localized marketing and culturally mixed product strategies for multinational brands,and practically provides a reference for multinational brands to implement culturally mixed product strategies in the Chinese market and effectively use Chinese elements to enhance consumer attitudes.