Economic development and consumer marketing in contemporary China

Citation

Lu Wang, C., Li, D. and Fu, G. (2010), "Economic development and consumer marketing in contemporary China", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2010.07727gaa.002

Economic development and consumer marketing in contemporary China

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Consumer Marketing, Volume 27, Issue 7

Cheng Lu WangProfessor and Chair at the University of New Haven, West Haven, CT, USA.Dongjin LiProfessor and Chair at the Nankai University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China.Guoqun FuProfessor and Chair at Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China.

As the largest emerging market with growing purchasing power, China has attracted significant attentions from both academicians and practitioners around the world. Academic studies on Chinese consumer market and its culture-embedded consumption patterns have dramatically increased in recent years and become one of the most prolific research streams in global marketing and consumer research. In this special issue, we are very pleased to include seven papers, which cover several important research topics and various consumer segments, from urban and affluent consumers to rural peasant consumers, from generation X to younger generations.

To understand Chinese consumer behavior, it is imperative to understand Chinese culture and its long lasting cultural values, which influence Chinese daily life and consumption behaviors. For instance, the concept of face has been deeply embedded in the Chinese culture and it is constantly playing a role in affecting how Chinese people interact in their daily routine. Du, Fan and Feng examined the role of face in service failure and recovery encounters, and examine the factors that influence customer emotions, recovery satisfaction and behavioral intention. The authors found that customers face restoration plays an important role in customer behavioral intention and service retention. In addition, customer face restoration is higher in the low-utilitarian but high-symbolic recovery than in the high-utilitarian but low-symbolic recovery. Therefore, service providers should pay much attention to customer perception of face during service encounters. This is especially true in the event of a service failure, in which service providers should take customer perception of face into account and adopt appropriate recovery strategies.

Similarly, Liu, Lu, Liang and Wei’s study shows that Chinese traditional cultural values have a significant impact on gift purchasing. In particular, the congruency between a gift giver’s social self-image, gift recipient’s private self-image and the gift image are important for gift purchase intention. It was found that consumers with higher Chinese traditional culture values pay more attention to their own image, as well as recipients’ social image so that gift given will match’s one’s social position.

Recently, Chinese cultural values have experienced great changes in the globalization process as consumers are not only exposed to Western products but also Western cultures and related values and lifestyles, especially in urban areas. To address the issue of how Chinese consumers accept the competitive advantages of global culture and at the same time keep the positive distinctiveness of the heritage culture, Lin and Ke explore the way in which Chinese consumers integrate both global culture and local culture through the change of intergenerational residence in Urban China. Their study found a new trend of intergenerational residence in Urban China, living apart but close. Living apart is a result of equalization between generations in sociopolitical power, whereas living close is a way for traditional value adapting to global environments. This reflects the fact that while the Chinese consumer has adopted “modern” values, they still maintain the traditional values. Such phenomena reflect the richness of Chinese dialectical way of glocalization, which retains basic (often positive) elements of opposing perspectives by seeking the middle ground.

As China has emerged as a consumer society, luxurious products from all over the world have found a new market in China’s affluent consumer segment, which not only possesses substantial purchasing power but also continuous growing size. He, Zou and Jin investigated the lifestyles of contemporary Chinese affluent consumers and their influences on a number of consumption variables such as brand preference (local versus foreign), attitudes toward innovative products, luxury consumption, and impulse purchases. Based on a large-scale survey of affluent consumers from 17 cities in China, the authors identified five distinct lifestyle factors.

Both the urban and affluent consumers, because of their higher purchasing power, modern lifestyle and willingness to spend on new products and luxurious products, have attracted most attentions from both academicians and marketers. However, consumers in rural areas are largely ignored due to their relatively lower income and more traditional thrifty consumption styles. Baoku, Cuixia and Weimin’s study examined such a unique consumer segment – Chinese peasant consumers. Applying the Consumer Style Inventory, the authors classified Chinese peasant consumers into three segments in terms of decision-making styles and psychological orientation:

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  confused by over choice peasant consumers (who lack the experience in the consumption of durable appliances);

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  fashion and impulsive peasant consumers (who are interested in obtaining excitement and fun in the process of searching for new product and adopting new fashion or trend of consumption); and

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  perfect peasant consumers (who are the most rational with have a high expectation on the quality, function and price/value).

This study provides an interesting comparison of consumption behavior patterns between the less matured rural consumer market and the much-developed urban consumer market.

Generation X in China (those born between the years of 1961 and 1981) has been described as having greater opportunities for educational and personal development, as well as being more self-indulgent and materialistic, compared to earlier generations. Access to multiple media channels, foreign media and opportunities for personal entertainment has enabled this generation to become sophisticated and media savvy on the one hand, but increasingly cynical and apathetic toward their use of media on the other. Based on empirical studies conducted in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Jozsa, Insch, Krisjanous and Fam examined metropolitan Chinese Generation Xers’ attitudes toward advertising and specific elements of the ads that they like and dislike. Generation Xers from both cities believed advertising is entertaining, yet devious. Therefore, advertising and creative agencies need to be aware of the cynicism attached to consumers’ response to advertising and the influence that this might have on their attitudes towards the brands they promote.

The youth market in China and around the world is increasingly using mobile phones as single-source communication devices to gain greater access to social circles, mobile-based content, and information. Gao, Sultan and Rohm investigated factors affecting consumers’ acceptance of mobile marketing in China. Personal attachment and risk acceptance are found to be antecedent factors to acceptance of mobile marketing practices in the Chinese market. Meanwhile, marketing-related and value-based mobile activities mediate the relationships between these antecedent factors and mobile marketing acceptance. However, the likelihood of sharing content has a significant negative influence on mobile marketing acceptance. Such findings illustrate the importance of recognizing the drivers of and obstacles to mobile marketing acceptance, including consumers’ likelihood of providing information, likelihood of accessing content, likelihood of sharing content, level of risk acceptance, and level of personal attachment to one’s mobile phone. Such findings provided practical implications to multinational companies entering China mobile phone market.

Cheng Lu Wang, Dongjin Li, Guoqun Fu