IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jobman/v26y2019i4d10.1057_s41262-018-0137-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A cultural approach to brand equity: the role of brand mianzi and brand popularity in China

Author

Listed:
  • Raffaele Filieri

    (Audencia Business School
    Newcastle University Business School)

  • Zhibin Lin

    (Durham University Business School)

  • Simona D’Antone

    (KEDGE Business School)

  • Elena Chatzopoulou

    (Newcastle University Business School)

Abstract

International marketers face a challenge in applying Western-derived theory in emerging markets such as China where there has been rapid economic growth and sociocultural transition. This study develops “culturally contextualized” determinants of brand equity in China. A qualitative approach consisting of 30 interviews revealed two new factors linking to brand equity: brand popularity and brand mianzi. A quantitative questionnaire survey with a sample of 321 Chinese smartphone users was conducted to test the hypotheses. The quantitative study’s findings further revealed that brand popularity and country of origin image affect brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand mianzi. Additionally, the effects of brand popularity and country of origin image on brand equity were mediated by the four determinants. Finally, brand mianzi was found to be the second most important determinant of brand equity after brand loyalty, highlighting the importance of cultural factors in branding activities in emerging markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Raffaele Filieri & Zhibin Lin & Simona D’Antone & Elena Chatzopoulou, 2019. "A cultural approach to brand equity: the role of brand mianzi and brand popularity in China," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(4), pages 376-394, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jobman:v:26:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1057_s41262-018-0137-x
    DOI: 10.1057/s41262-018-0137-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41262-018-0137-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41262-018-0137-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beatty, Sharon E. & Homer, Pamela & Kahle, Lynn R., 1988. "The involvement--commitment model: Theory and implications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 149-167, March.
    2. Nedungadi, Prakash, 1990. "Recall and Consumer Consideration Sets: Influencing Choice without Altering Brand Evaluations," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(3), pages 263-276, December.
    3. Costa, Camila & Carneiro, Jorge & Goldszmidt, Rafael, 2016. "A contingent approach to country-of-origin effects on foreign products evaluation: Interaction of facets of country image with product classes," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 1066-1075.
    4. Lisa Jones Christensen & Enno Siemsen & Sridhar Balasubramanian, 2015. "Consumer behavior change at the base of the pyramid: Bridging the gap between for-profit and social responsibility strategies," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 307-317, February.
    5. Cheng Wang & Xiaohua Lin, 2009. "Migration of Chinese Consumption Values: Traditions, Modernization, and Cultural Renaissance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(3), pages 399-409, October.
    6. Zhan, Lingjing & He, Yanqun, 2012. "Understanding luxury consumption in China: Consumer perceptions of best-known brands," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(10), pages 1452-1460.
    7. Ackerman, Karen & MacDonald, Stephen & Milmoe, Steve, 1990. "International Trade," Food Review/ National Food Review, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, vol. 13(3), September.
    8. Adamantios Diamantopoulos & Arnd Florack & Georgios Halkias & Johanna Palcu, 2017. "Explicit versus implicit country stereotypes as predictors of product preferences: Insights from the stereotype content model," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 48(8), pages 1023-1036, October.
    9. Srinivasan, V. Seenu & Park, Chan Su & Chang, Dae Ryun, 2005. "An Approach to the Measurement, Analysis, and Prediction of Brand Equity and Its Sources," Research Papers 1685r2, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    10. Leung, Kwok, 2008. "Chinese culture, modernization, and international business," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 184-187, April.
    11. Chatzipanagiotou, Kalliopi & Veloutsou, Cleopatra & Christodoulides, George, 2016. "Decoding the complexity of the consumer-based brand equity process," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 5479-5486.
    12. Warren J Bilkey & Erik Nes, 1982. "Country-of-Origin Effects on Product Evaluations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 13(1), pages 89-100, March.
    13. Netemeyer, Richard G. & Krishnan, Balaji & Pullig, Chris & Wang, Guangping & Yagci, Mehmet & Dean, Dwane & Ricks, Joe & Wirth, Ferdinand, 2004. "Developing and validating measures of facets of customer-based brand equity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 209-224, February.
    14. V. Srinivasan & Chan Su Park & Dae Ryun Chang, 2005. "An Approach to the Measurement, Analysis, and Prediction of Brand Equity and Its Sources," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(9), pages 1433-1448, September.
    15. Brian R Chabowski & Saeed Samiee & G Tomas M Hult, 2013. "A bibliometric analysis of the global branding literature and a research agenda," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 44(6), pages 622-634, August.
    16. Ravi Pappu & Pascale G Quester & Ray W Cooksey, 2007. "Country image and consumer-based brand equity: relationships and implications for international marketing," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 38(5), pages 726-745, September.
    17. Yu-Shan Chen, 2010. "The Drivers of Green Brand Equity: Green Brand Image, Green Satisfaction, and Green Trust," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(2), pages 307-319, May.
    18. Buckley, Peter J. & Clegg, Jeremy & Tan, Hui, 2006. "Cultural awareness in knowledge transfer to China--The role of guanxi and mianzi," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 275-288, September.
    19. Yang, Deli & Sonmez, Mahmut (Maho) & Li, Qinghai & Duan, Yibing, 2015. "The power of triple contexts on customer-based brand performance—A comparative study of Baidu and Google from Chinese netizens’ perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 11-22.
    20. (Sandy) Zhang, Sha & van Doorn, Jenny & Leeflang, Peter S.H., 2014. "Does the importance of value, brand and relationship equity for customer loyalty differ between Eastern and Western cultures?," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 284-292.
    21. Martin Heinberg & H Erkan Ozkaya & Markus Taube, 2017. "The influence of global and local iconic brand positioning on advertising persuasion in an emerging market setting," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 48(8), pages 1009-1022, October.
    22. Verlegh, Peeter W. J. & Steenkamp, Jan-Benedict E. M., 1999. "A review and meta-analysis of country-of-origin research," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 521-546, October.
    23. Xinshu Zhao & John G. Lynch & Qimei Chen, 2010. "Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and Truths about Mediation Analysis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 37(2), pages 197-206, August.
    24. Kim, Angella J. & Ko, Eunju, 2012. "Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(10), pages 1480-1486.
    25. Paurav Shukla & Jaywant Singh & Madhumita Banerjee, 2015. "They are not all same: variations in Asian consumers’ value perceptions of luxury brands," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 265-278, September.
    26. Bian, Qin & Forsythe, Sandra, 2012. "Purchase intention for luxury brands: A cross cultural comparison," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(10), pages 1443-1451.
    27. Yoo, Boonghee & Donthu, Naveen, 2001. "Developing and validating a multidimensional consumer-based brand equity scale," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 1-14, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muhammad Sohaib & Jacob Mlynarski & Rui Wu, 2022. "Building Brand Equity: The Impact of Brand Experience, Brand Love, and Brand Engagement—A Case Study of Customers’ Perception of the Apple Brand in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-19, December.
    2. Shaun M. Powell, 2019. "Journal of Brand Management: year end review 2019," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(6), pages 615-620, November.
    3. Pengji Wang & Adrian T. H. Kuah & Qinye Lu & Caroline Wong & K. Thirumaran & Emmanuel Adegbite & Wesley Kendall, 2021. "The impact of value perceptions on purchase intention of sustainable luxury brands in China and the UK," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 325-346, May.
    4. Fong, Cher-Min & Chang, Hsing-Hua Stella & Lin, Mong-Ching & Chen, I-Hung, 2022. "Reexamining emerging market animosity toward western developed countries: A social dilemma in physical retailing consumption under normative influence," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. Chung-Shing Chan, 2023. "From the perspective of local brand equity, how do citizens perceive green, creative and smart brand potential of future Hong Kong?," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(4), pages 500-513, December.
    6. Shanshan Luo & Robert Hamlin, 2022. "A cross cultural comparison of brand love in consumer brand relationships: Is ‘transmissive brand love’ a potential platform for developing brand equity?," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(5), pages 484-497, September.
    7. Hiroyasu Furukawa & Kyung-Tae Lee, 2023. "Environmentally Friendly Materialism: How It Is Generated and How Luxury Apparel Addresses Environmental Problems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-18, April.
    8. Bazi, Saleh & Filieri, Raffaele & Gorton, Matthew, 2020. "Customers’ motivation to engage with luxury brands on social media," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 223-235.
    9. Rojas-Lamorena, Álvaro J. & Del Barrio-García, Salvador & Alcántara-Pilar, Juan Miguel, 2022. "A review of three decades of academic research on brand equity: A bibliometric approach using co-word analysis and bibliographic coupling," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 1067-1083.
    10. Zamira Ataniyazova & Barry A. Friedman & Prabha Kiran, 2022. "New corporate social responsibility brand evaluation in a developing country: Uzbekistan," International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-15, December.
    11. Ray, Arghya & Bala, Pradip Kumar & Chakraborty, Shibashish & Dasgupta, Shilpee A., 2021. "Exploring the impact of different factors on brand equity and intention to take up online courses from e-Learning platforms," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    12. Yuan, Denghua & Lin, Zhibin & Filieri, Raffaele & Liu, Ran & Zheng, Mengqin, 2020. "Managing the product-harm crisis in the digital era: The role of consumer online brand community engagement," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 38-47.
    13. Huang, Rui & Huang, Minxue & Zhao, Jing & Liu, Yuan, 2024. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder: The interactive effect of crowding information and spatial distance on consumers’ patronage intention," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    14. Filieri, Raffaele & Acikgoz, Fulya & Du, Hao, 2023. "Electronic word-of-mouth from video bloggers: The role of content quality and source homophily across hedonic and utilitarian products," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kumar, Ajay & Paul, Justin, 2018. "Mass prestige value and competition between American versus Asian laptop brands in an emerging market—Theory and evidence," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 969-981.
    2. Rojas-Lamorena, Álvaro J. & Del Barrio-García, Salvador & Alcántara-Pilar, Juan Miguel, 2022. "A review of three decades of academic research on brand equity: A bibliometric approach using co-word analysis and bibliographic coupling," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 1067-1083.
    3. Peter Magnusson & Stanford A. Westjohn & Nancy J. Sirianni, 2019. "Beyond country image favorability: How brand positioning via country personality stereotypes enhances brand evaluations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(3), pages 318-338, April.
    4. Rajesh Sharma, 2020. "Building Consumer-based Brand Equity for Fast Fashion Apparel Brands in the Indian Consumer Market," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 45(3), pages 337-365, August.
    5. Katharina Petra Zeugner Roth & Adamantios Diamantopoulos & Mª Ángeles Montesinos, 2008. "Home Country Image, Country Brand Equity and Consumers’ Product Preferences: An Empirical Study," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 577-602, November.
    6. Pengji Wang & Adrian T. H. Kuah & Qinye Lu & Caroline Wong & K. Thirumaran & Emmanuel Adegbite & Wesley Kendall, 2021. "The impact of value perceptions on purchase intention of sustainable luxury brands in China and the UK," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 325-346, May.
    7. Muhammad Ishtiaq Ishaq & Eleonora Di Maria, 2020. "Sustainability countenance in brand equity: a critical review and future research directions," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(1), pages 15-34, January.
    8. Saeed Samiee & Brian R. Chabowski, 2021. "Knowledge structure in product- and brand origin–related research," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(5), pages 947-968, September.
    9. Lang, Le Dang & Lim, Weng Marc & Guzmán, Francisco, 2022. "How does promotion mix affect brand equity? Insights from a mixed-methods study of low involvement products," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 175-190.
    10. Coderre, François & Sirieix, Lucie & Valette-Florence, Pierre, 2022. "The facets of consumer-based food label equity: Measurement, structure and managerial relevance," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. Ching-Hsun Chang & Yu-Shan Chen, 2014. "Managing green brand equity: the perspective of perceived risk theory," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 1753-1768, May.
    12. Baldauf, Artur & Cravens, Karen S. & Diamantopoulos, Adamantios & Zeugner-Roth, Katharina Petra, 2009. "The Impact of Product-Country Image and Marketing Efforts on Retailer-Perceived Brand Equity: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(4), pages 437-452.
    13. de Oliveira, Marta Olivia Rovedder & Silveira, Cleo Schmitt & Luce, Fernando Bins, 2015. "Brand equity estimation model," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 2560-2568.
    14. Sharma, Amalesh & Soni, Mauli & Borah, Sourav Bikash & Saboo, Alok R., 2020. "Identifying the drivers of luxury brand sales in emerging markets: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 25-40.
    15. Hariharan, Vijay Ganesh & Desai, Kalpesh Kaushik & Talukdar, Debabrata & Inman, J. Jeffrey, 2018. "Shopper marketing moderators of the brand equity – behavioral loyalty relationship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 91-104.
    16. Sally Baalbaki & Francisco Guzmán, 2016. "A consumer-perceived consumer-based brand equity scale," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(3), pages 229-251, May.
    17. Kapoor, Ankur & Sahay, Arvind & Singh, Nandini C. & Chandrasekhar Pammi, V.S. & Banerjee, Prantosh, 2023. "The neural correlates and the underlying processes of weak brand choices," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    18. Jin, Zhongqi & Lynch, Richard & Attia, Samaa & Chansarkar, Bal & Gülsoy, Tanses & Lapoule, Paul & Liu, Xueyuan & Newburry, William & Nooraini, Mohamad Sheriff & Parente, Ronaldo & Purani, Keyoor & Ung, 2015. "The relationship between consumer ethnocentrism, cosmopolitanism and product country image among younger generation consumers: The moderating role of country development status," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 380-393.
    19. Magnoni, Fanny & Valette-Florence, Pierre & De Barnier, Virginie, 2021. "Modeling the effects of place heritage and place experience on residents’ behavioral intentions toward a city: A mediation analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 428-442.
    20. Chatzipanagiotou, Kalliopi & Christodoulides, George & Veloutsou, Cleopatra, 2019. "Managing the consumer-based brand equity process: A cross-cultural perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 328-343.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jobman:v:26:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1057_s41262-018-0137-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.