Prof. Valentyna Melnik, Ph.D. (Massey University): 

"What to stress to whom and where? Effectiveness of brand positioning strategies across the world"
(with Ralf van der Lans, Yvonne van Everdingen, and Daan de Raaf)

Monday, July 14, 10:00am – 11:30pm (WiSo Modulbau, Seminar Room 3) 

Abstract:

This paper investigates cross-country differences in response to four brand benefits that are commonly stressed in international positioning strategies: quality, uniqueness, leading position, and growing popularity. We investigate how important these four brand benefits are in determining brand purchase intentions across the globe, and how these relations are moderated by consumer, country, and competitor’s characteristics and product categories. To achieve this, we developed a hierarchical Bayesian model that recognizes the ordinal nature of the measurement of purchase intentions and captures differences in response styles in a parsimonious way. The model is estimated using purchase likelihood data coming from 19,415 respondents across 25 countries, who assessed 395 brands across seven product categories. The results show that a brand’s quality is on average the strongest predictor of a brand’s purchase likelihood, while growing in popularity appears to be the least important predictor. These effects differ substantially across countries and consumers, but the most important moderator is the perceived positioning of competing brands. The results provide managers with insights into where and to whom to stress which brand benefits.