Abstract (eng)
Perceived brand globalness (PBG) and perceived brand localness (PBL) are modern marketing constructs that have been gaining momentum in academia in recent years. These constructs refer to the notion that consumers perceive brands to be rather global and/or local. As these constructs have been found to strongly influence attitude and behavior towards brands, they open up new options to satisfy customer needs.
As these constructs are still rather novel, academia has not investigated how products with different levels of PBG and PBL interplay in the context of multi-product offerings, that is, product bundles. The main focus of analyzing product bundles lies in the increased understanding of consumer perception regarding PBG & PBL as well as in the disentangling of the effect regarding attitude and behavior. To summarize, this thesis aims to blend the theories on product bundling and international branding in order to examine relevant marketing strategies.
To research the connection of PBG & PBL to product bundling, an experimental online study with 307 participants was conducted in Austria. The participants evaluated four pre-tested bundle conditions (pure global, mixed global, mixed local, and local bundle) in regard to PBG & PBL and multiple other variables. The results indicate that consumers can successfully differentiate between different levels of PBG but have difficulties in seeing the different levels of PBL. However, PBL plays a greater role in regard to attitude and behavior than PBG. Furthermore, brand trust and brand credibility are identified as mediators of PBG & PBL in regard to attitude and behavior.
The results provide many implications concerning marketing theory and managerial practice. First, only PBL play a role with regard to attitude and behavior of multi-product offerings. Second, PBG is seen to overshadow the perception of PBL. Third, PBL has a larger influence on attitude and behavior than PBG in most bundle conditions. Fourth, brand trust and brand credibility act as mediators for the constructs and explain further why consumers increase their preference for perceived global and local products. Fifth, PBG & PBL are not attributes that further increase the perceived variety of product bundles.
All of these results show that PBG & PBL in product bundles should not be neglected in a theoretical and practical marketing context.