Mitigating consumer ethnocentrism via advertising and media consumption in a transitional market

Abstract

Consumer ethnocentrism is considered an important barrier to consumption in the global marketplace. Although the concept of consumer ethnocentrism has been investigated over many years in developed markets, there is little research addressing the mitigation of consumer ethnocentrism in transitional economies, which are becoming increasingly important in the global marketplace. One such market, Russia, represents a major potential investment opportunity for global marketers. In this study, we undertake an exploratory study investigating consumer ethnocentrism's negative influence on Russians' attitudes towards foreign products and their frequency of purchase of foreign products. We also demonstrate that the influence of consumer ethnocentrism on the frequency of purchase of foreign products is moderated by consumers' exposure to mass communication (i.e. exposure to television, exposure to foreign movies) and by marketing communication efforts (i.e. exposure to foreign product advertising, involvement with foreign product advertising). In addition to extending theoretical research to a transitional, non-Western context, the empirical results also provide implications for international advertising practitioners.

Alternative Proposals to Measure Consumer Ethnocentric Behavior: A Narrative Literature Review

“…Although its original application focused on consumers in the United States, it has subsequently been validated at the international level by numerous works in a wide range of geographic areas covering the five continents. More specifically, in the case of Europe, we find applications in countries such as France [4], Germany [5,6], Poland [7,8], Russia [3,9,10], Slovenia [11,12], Serbia [13], Spain [14,15], Turkey [16,17], and United Kingdom [18,19].…”

Measuring the Ethnocentric Tendencies of Iranian Consumers: An Assessment of Validity and Reliability of the CETSCALE

“…In marketing, researchers had borrowed the concept and measures of ethnocentrism from sociology (Luque-Martínez, Ibáñez-Zapata, and Barrio-García 2000;Puzakova, Kwak, and Andras 2010). The scales of Adorno and others (1950), Chang and Ritter (1976), and Warr, Faust, and Harrison (1967) had been used to investigate the relationship between ethnocentrism and relevant marketing concepts.…”

Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior in Sustainable Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in Maramures County, Romania

“…More specifically, we found applications of consumer ethnocentrism in specific countries, such as by Kaynak and Kara [62] and Erdogan and Uzkurt [63] in Turkey, who studied the effects of ethnocentric tendency on consumer perception of product attitudes for foreign and domestic products. In Russia, Puzakova et al [64] remarked on mitigating consumer ethnocentrism via advertising and media consumption in a transitional market. In Slovenia, Vukasovič's research [65] was focused on consumer attitudes towards organic fruits and vegetables.…”