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This study attempts to identify the brand personality dimensions that American firms intend to create in the mind of online consumers by using “forms of online communications” partially based on Ghose and Dou's earlier study.

The operational definitions of brand personality stimuli are adopted from prior research on advertising creative strategies. A content analysis was conducted on 270 web sites created by 64 American brands in the USA, UK, France, Germany and Spain.

A principal component analysis identifies five underlying dimensions of brand personality stimuli: excitement, sophistication, affection, popularity, and competence. The principal forms of online communications consist of stakeholder relations, direct/indirect sales, choice functions, connectedness, orientation, and product positioning. Multiple regression analyses confirm that there are modest but consistent associations between the intended brand personality dimensions and the forms of online communications.

The dimensions of brand personality stimuli are intrinsically traceable from the perspective of the creative advertising appeals that multinational corporations (MNCs) attempt to employ on their web sites.

This study provides a practical observation relating to whether MNCs are attempting to create a uniform set of brand personality dimensions across global markets.

The present study contributes to the literature by its attempt to classify brand personality stimuli in terms of the cognition versus affection framework.

Purpose – This chapter presents a framework useful in conducting multicountry marketing and advertising research. For the purpose of illustrating the series of steps involved in conducting such investigations, a six-country study examining global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) is presented. The suggested steps are relevant for the exploration of a wide variety of marketing- and advertising-related topics.

Methodology/approach – Steps essential to a well-planned research design are addressed in detail, including: theory identification, stimuli selection, hypotheses formulation, measurement development, country selection, fictitious ad development, survey design, cross-national data equivalence, and hypotheses testing. Particular attention is given to construct specification (in this case for soft-sell and hard-sell advertising appeals) and fictitious ad development. General consumers in six countries responded to the ads. Specific procedures for validating formative constructs and testing their cross-country equivalency are suggested.

Findings – The chapter provides practical recommendations for conducting cross-cultural research. These recommendations are likely to prove useful to both researchers conducting multicountry investigations, and to instructors teaching graduate-level courses in international marketing and advertising research.

Originality/value of paper – Multicountry research requires a series of challenging decisions. Although a well-planned research design is particularly essential in a cross-cultural setting, little attention has been given in providing researchers and instructors with methodological recommendations. This chapter is intended to be a useful reference for these audiences.

To discover whether there are market segments for the fashion industry that cut across countries and respond differently to advertising messages.

A survey was administered to Korean, European, and US female consumers. Cluster analysis is used in an attempt to identify lifestyle segments that cut across cultures.

Four cross‐national market segments are identified. These segments can be labeled as follows: “information seekers,” “sensation seekers,” “utilitarian consumers,” and “conspicuous consumers.” Findings also reveal that fashion lifestyle segment had a stronger effect on the reaction to a set of three ads for a major global fashion company (one each from the French, Korean, and US editions of Vogue magazine) than did consumer nationality.

Findings suggest that it is viable and perhaps desirable for global marketers in the fashion industry to target cross‐national market segments as opposed to developing individual segmentation schemes for each country.

Relatively few studies examining the viability of cross‐national segmentation have been studies. The study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests standardized advertising is appropriate for some fashion marketers.

Despite the growing use of the Internet as an effective marketing channel, there is a lack of comprehensive research regarding multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) Web sites for multiple cultures. In this paper, Japanese MNCs’ product‐based Web sites were content‐analysed, comparing the Web sites created by the same firms in domestic and external markets. In total, 150 product‐based Web sites were chosen from the Japanese, Spanish and US market samples. Three explanatory variables (information content, cultural values and creative strategies) were examined on the basis of cultural dimensions and contexts. The results revealed that Japanese MNCs are likely to localise their Web sites to meet the target market culture through tailoring content and creative strategies, but also that online product presentations do not reflect target‐market values. In closing, implications and future research directions are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore customer engagement in Twitter via data mining.

This study’s intended contributions are twofold: to find a clear connection among customer engagement, presumption, and Web 2.0 in a context of service-dominant (S-D) logic; and to identify social networks created by prosumers. To this end, the study employed data mining techniques. Tweets about IKEA were used as a sample. The resulting algorithm based on 300 tweets was applied to 4,000 tweets to identify the patterns of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).

Social networks created in IKEA’s tweets consist of three forms of eWOM: objective statements, subjective statements, and knowledge sharing. Most objective statements are disseminated from satisfied or neutral customers, while subjective statements are disseminated from dissatisfied or neutral customers. Satisfied customers mainly carry out knowledge sharing, which seems to reflect presumption behavior.

This study provides partial evidence of customer engagement and presumption in IKEA’s tweets. The results indicate that there are three forms of eWOM in the networks: objective statements, subjective statements, and knowledge sharing. It seems that IKEA successfully engaged customers in knowledge sharing, while negative opinions were mainly disseminated in a limited circle.

Firms should make more of an effort to identify prosumers via data mining, since these networks are hidden behind “self-proclaimed” followers. Prosumers differ from opinion leaders, since they actively participate in product development. Thus, firms should seek prosumers in order to more closely fit their products to consumer needs. As a practical strategy, firms could employ celebrities for promotional purposes and use them as a platform to convert their followers to prosumers. In addition, firms are encouraged to make public how they resolve problematic customer complaints so that customers can feel they are a part of firms’ service development.

Theoretically, the study makes unique contributions by offering a synergic framework of S-D logic and Web 2.0. The conceptual framework collectively relates customer engagement, presumption, and Web 2.0 to social networks. In addition, the idea of examining social networks based on different forms of eWOM has seldom been touched in the literature. Methodologically, the study employed seven algorithms to choose the most robust model, which was later applied to 4,000 tweets.

This study explores US brands' web site standardisation in terms of the extent of standardisation and the content applied across European markets. The conceptual framework was created on the basis of four basic functions of web site content, i.e. transaction, communication, relationship, and interactivity.

In total, 206 web sites created for the UK, France, Germany, and Spain were examined by online content analysis techniques, in terms of the features of the web site in each host country, and the similarity between the home‐country (USA) and host‐country web sites. The unit of analysis was determined to be the first page or homepage of the web sites, excluding analysis of hyperlinks. Multivariate analyses were applied to test the principal thesis of the study.

The brands sold by US firms adopted a localisation strategy for web sites created for European markets by tailoring the specific content to each market, but maintained a minimum level of uniformity for logo, colour and layout. Other aspects, such as textual information and visual images, were very dissimilar across markets. Image reinforcement, direct sales functions and availability of choice were found to be the most significant features influencing web site standardisation. Furthermore, as in traditional media, the extent of web site standardisation for durable goods was significantly higher than for non‐durables.

The findings of this study should make advertisers and agencies more aware of the cultural and socio‐economic differences, rather than similarities, within the single European market. Despite the increasing consensus concerning the wider applicability of standardisation practices in traditional media, the findings of this study imply that a greater segment of interactive expertise may have accepted a view that subtle but important cultural differences exist across Europe, in terms of the use, selection and participation in web site‐based marketing.

The objective of this paper is to uncover the underlying dimensions of, and examine the similarities and differences in, personal uses of advertising, perceived socio‐economic effects of advertising, and consumer beliefs and attitudes toward advertising in Bulgaria and Romania. Moreover, it aims to identify the relative importance of the predictors of attitudes toward advertising in the two countries.

The paper draws upon findings of previous research and theoretical developments by Bauer and Greyser, Sandage and Leckenby, and Pollay and Mittal. The study uses a stratified random sample of 947 face‐to‐face interviews with adult respondents from major urban areas in Bulgaria (507) and Romania (440). Variables are measured on multi‐item scales as a typical application of the reflective indicator model.

Results show that there are significant differences between Romanian and Bulgarian respondents in terms of their attitudes toward advertising. Romanians are more positive about advertising as an institution than the instruments of advertising. Romanians seem to accept the role of advertising in a free market economy, but have less confidence in advertising claims and techniques. Bulgarian respondents seem more sceptical toward advertising in general and are less enthusiastic about embracing the role of advertising as an institution. Moreover, Bulgarians are highly negative towards the instruments advertising uses to convey its messages to consumers.

The research findings reflect the views of urban dwellers and may not be generalisable to the wider population of the two countries. Interviewer bias was reduced by eliminating verbal or non‐verbal cues to the respondents, and by the use of stratified random sampling.

The paper suggests that the regulatory role of codes of advertising practice and industry regulating bodies should be enhanced, and their ability to protect consumers enforced. Marketing campaigns should be more inclusive to involve diverse social groups and reflect generally‐accepted social norms.

This study reveals that, while general attitudes toward advertising may be similar, attitudes toward the institution and instruments of advertising may differ even in countries with geographic proximity and low cultural distance.

The global mobile game industry expects spectacular growth in the coming years. Ubiquitous entertainment has been drawing much attention from the “global youth” segment, which seeks innovative, efficient, and enjoyable pastimes. However, little is known about the adoption behavior of mobile games across cultures. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the factors influencing mobile game adoption in the U.S.A., Japan, Spain, and the Czech Republic. The technology acceptance model has been extended by incorporating two variables: inherent novelty seeking and social norms. Our research model received strong support from the American and Japanese samples. However, only modest support was found for the Czech sample. In closing, after recognizing important limitations, we discuss the managerial and theoretical implications.

The purpose of this study is to examine likeable executional techniques in advertising across five Asian countries and their impact on purchase intentions.

A total of 1,000 urban young adults in five Asian countries (HK, China, Indonesia, Thailand and India) were telephone interviewed on their thoughts about the TV advertisement/s that they liked, product that was being advertised and purchase intention. Their responses were summarised into seven likeable executional techniques and product categories.

There is not a specific likeable executional technique that influences a purchase in four of the five countries. India is the only country where significant but weak overall model fit observed. These results demonstrate that, while there are differences among the countries, people in the same cohort broadly share the same values. For product categories, our findings demonstrate that product nature may moderate cultural influence on advertising effectiveness.

International advertisers who are vying for a share of the largely‐untapped Asian market can benefit by understanding the target country's cultural values and using it as a guideline for creating effective executional techniques in advertising.

This study extends the existing knowledge which demonstrates that, in Asia, persuasive executional techniques differ depending on the product category.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese and German consumers react to print advertisements that are potentially offensive.

Using culture theories about information context, individualism and feminine consciousness, the paper hypothesizes that Chinese consumers will be less accepting of the advertisements than German consumers. It also compares the dimensions of consumer perceptions for both countries and how consumer perceptions are related with intentions to reject the products and the brands because of the ads. A survey of 563 respondents aged 17‐58 from urban China (Shanghai) and Germany was conducted in October 2005 and June 2006. A questionnaire with six print advertisements containing sexism and other themes was constructed. Data were collected through five universities.

Findings on perceptions of the offensive advertisements among Chinese and German respondents were mixed. Overall, as expected, Chinese respondents were less accepting of offensive advertising, as they liked the advertisements less than German respondents. However, they were also more likely than German respondents to find the advertisements convincing and informative. Results showed that Chinese respondents and German respondents had different dimensions of advertising perceptions. The two print advertisements that received the most negative perceptions both contained sexually oriented body images. The study also found that advertising perceptions had a significant impact on consumers' intentions to reject the products and the brands.

The city surveyed in China is highly advanced in terms of economical and advertising development when compared with all other Chinese cities. Consumer responses were derived from a student sample. Only the “manner” of offensive advertising was studied, and the “matter” as well as “media” were not covered.

Useful advice for marketers and advertisers to understand how far they can stretch the line for controversial advertisements and to assess the possible risk involved.

This paper offers insight to design communication and message strategies for consumers of very different cultural backgrounds.