Search results

The purpose of this paper is to study the nature of brand emotions elicited by advertising stimuli across cultures and the process underlying such emotional experiences.

The study uses factorial between-subjects design. Random samples of the populations were solicited from the panels of an international data provider in Norway and Thailand.

This research shows that Thai consumers experience more positive socially engaging and disengaging brand emotions and fewer negative socially engaging emotions relative to Norwegian consumers. The effects of culture are mediated by consumers’ self-construal. Social advertising context increases number of positive and negative socially engaging emotions among Thai (but not among Norwegian) consumers.

The results highlight the importance of incorporating social orientation of emotions and adverting context in cross-cultural studies of brand emotions. The finding that Thai consumers (relative to Norwegian) experience higher levels of atypical for their culture – positive socially disengaging brand emotions requires further research.

The findings suggest that advertising stimuli need to be adapted to the cultural context. Marketing managers should use extensive pretesting in culturally distinct markets to make sure that advertising evokes brand emotions in line with the strategy.

Despite extensive research on brand emotions, extant studies on brand emotions across cultures are limited. This study is among the first to advance the understanding of how social orientation of emotions and advertising context underlie experience of brand emotions across cultures.

This study aims to focus on an interplay of brand stereotypes (Brands as Intentional Agents Framework [BIAF]) with an aspect of culture and its impact on behavioral intentions in an individualist culture (Norway) and a collectivist culture (Thailand).

This study incorporates a survey conducted in two cultures (Norway: N = 177 and Thailand: N = 288).

In both cultures, competence had a stronger effect on purchase intentions toward a brand than warmth. There was a stronger effect on brand purchase intentions of competence found for an individualist versus a collectivist culture, and we found a stronger effect of warmth on purchase intentions in a collectivist versus an individualist culture. The direct joint effect of warmth and competence on purchase intentions was brand-specific in Norway. Admiration mediated this joint effect in the collectivist but not in the individualist culture.

This study’s results point to cross-cultural variability of some of the effects of brand perceptions on behavioral intentions.

These findings suggest that international brand managers should consider both the cultural universality and the cultural variability of BIAF.

Despite extensive research on BIAF, studies on brand perceptions from the cross-cultural perspective are few. This investigation sheds some light on the differential effects of the framework across a collectivist and an individualist culture.