Expanding cross-cultural social interaction regardless of whether it is real or virtual makes consumers become interested in different cultures, thereby increasing the number of consumers with positive attitudes toward foreign countries. This study examines the role of consumer affinity-a feeling of sympathy and attachment to a specific foreign country-in cross-cultural consumer decision-making. Specifically, it investigates the conditions that promote or inhibit consumer affinity for foreign product evaluation from the perspective of construal level theory and regulatory focus theory. A series of experiments clarified that when considering the purchase of a foreign product, consumer affinity caused a psychological proximity between the two countries, which could result in a change in consumers' construal level and, therefore, a difference in the effective method of a product appeal (promotion-focused vs. prevention-focused). This psychological mechanism will expand the research on effective communication strategies when marketing products or services globally.
People perceive letters included in their name more favorably than those not included in their name. This tendency is called the name letter effect, and it can affect various types of decision-making, including brand choices. For instance, a consumer named Lundy is more likely than one named Thomas to purchase a Lexus car, as it shares the same initial. This study examines how the name letter affects consumers' brand choices when brand names are written in Japanese Kanji script. Previous studies have shown that Kanji are processed as visual rather than auditory information. Based on this linguistic nature, the authors predicted that the name letter effect in Kanji would be elicited by congruence between a brand name and a consumer's name in both spelling and pronunciation (vs. only in pronunciation). An analysis of actual purchase data concerned with the OTC stomach medicine Ohta-Isan (太田胃酸) revealed that consumers with names that matched the brand name (太田) in both pronunciation and Kanji spelling were more likely to purchase the medicine than consumers whose name was pronounced the same but written with different Kanji (e.g. 大田 and 多田, both pronounced Ohta) and consumers with names neither spelled nor pronounced the same way.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.