CCP and Brand Schema Incongruity: Implications for Foreign Brand Communication

What is it about?

Despite the abundance of research on consumer culture positioning (CCP), there is a surprising lack of empirical evidence on how a chosen positioning strategy influences consumers’ responses when it violates their existing brand beliefs. Drawing from CCP theory and schema incongruity research, our study addresses this issue by assessing the effectiveness of alternative CCP strategies for brands with a foreign identity and by investigating the mechanism underlying consumers’ responses to foreign brand communication.

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Why is it important?

Our findings contribute to international marketing theory by reconciling CCP and schema incongruity research and showing that the effectiveness of different CCP ads is contingent on the meaningfulness of the ad–brand relationship. From a managerial perspective, our study offers a number of valuable insights for optimizing foreign brand communication by pointing out the relative benefits and pitfalls of alternative ad strategies based on CCP.