Foreign versus local consumer culture positioning when entering foreign markets: Synergies of anthropomorphic ads, ethnocentrism, and culture positioning on brand evaluations

Lefa Teng, Mengmeng Zhang, Lianne Foti, Xinran Wang, and Xinyan Yang

Using consumer culture positioning strategies, this study examines how advertisement style (anthropomorphism or nonanthropomorphism) affects a target market’s brand evaluation with a high (versus low) level of consumer ethnocentrism.
Teng et al

Management Slant

  • When brands use foreign consumer culture positioning to enter foreign markets, anthropomorphism in advertisements increases social affiliation and leads to a more favorable advertising style and brand evaluation by people associated with a high level of consumer ethnocentrism (i.e., the belief that buying foreign products is wrong).
  • The effect is the same on people with a low level of consumer ethnocentrism when, by comparison, brands use local consumer culture positioning to enter foreign markets, although to a lesser degree.
  • There is a three-way interaction effect here: Advertising style (e.g., use of...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands