Intercultural Investigation of Consumer Behavior-- A Cross-cultural Study on Brand-consciousness between UK and China Students at Clothing Purchase

Intercultural Investigation of Consumer Behavior : Cross-cultural Study on Brand-consciousness between UK and China Students at Clothing Purchase

Abstract

1 Introduction

1 .1 Background

This dissertation was made from a cross-cultural perspective since many Chinese students have been studying in UK . While living in a different culture and interacting with UK students , the researcher have noticed the situation wherein there are different considerations in buying clothes between the two cultures . Bearing this in mind , the researcher is interested in finding out whether the buying behavior related to brand consciousness

regarding cultural differences between UK and China

The world people live in today are filled with marks , which is commonly referred to as brand ' A brand brings a wealth of quality , value and high performance cues to a product , which enables the customer to recognize directly (Masterson Pickton , 2004 . The effectiveness of a brand is characterized more by what makes it different from other brands than from any essential quality of the brand itself . In the United States , brand names are an important factor affecting consumers purchase decisions , well-known brands such as Nike and Gap , have been popular choices (Liebeck , 1996

The students have become the target groups for the fashion apparels market today , because of their fashion consciousness and their relatively high purchasing capacity . Marx (1995 ,

.40 ) states that in addition to spending 93 billion annually , students are brand conscious and very loyal . Quoting Eric Weil , publisher of Collegiate Trends They would not give a second thought to buying a 1-liter bottle of Evian water (Marx , 1994 ,

.40 . Such suggestions lead to the belief that young adults are brand conscious consumers

But is this idea confirmed in different cultures ? Do Chinese students place much intention on brand names as UK students ? It was shown that most study on consumer behavior and brand consciousness were developed and conducted in the United States and little of the studies have considered crosss-cultural investigation . Triandis (1982 ) pointed out that virtually all psychological theories have been derived in Europe and the United States , and very few of these theories have been subjected to compare consumer behavior in different cultures

in its cultural contexts that result in how people perceive and interpret brands and how their purchase decisions are affected based on such attitudes . Therefore , to understand culture 's influence on consumers ' brand consciousness , the culture traits should be integrated with the various theories throughout the research . Cultural diversities play an important and central role throughout this research . The comparison of two culture backgrounds and its impact on consumer decision-making were analyzed

2 . Literature Framework

2 .1 Brand and Brand Theories . Brands are treated as complex cognitive entities created by consumers in reaction to their to the product . Brands should be viewed as social entities , created as much by consumers as by brand owners (Hanby , 1999

Aaker (1991 ) differentiated a product from a brand through the following statements

a product is something that is made in a factory a brand is something that is bought...