Sharon Ng and Michael Houston (University of Minnesota) collaborated on a study that compares the attitudes of college students from Singapore and the United States towards well-known brands (such as Nike, Sony, and Volkswagen). Participants from both countries were asked to free-associate about brands and to group together brands they thought were similar.
Consistent differences emerged between the Singaporeans and the Americans, "…provid[ing] convincing evidence that self-view affects the way one processes information," write the authors. "[Westerners and Easterners] use the same piece of information differently. Collectively, these studies provide new evidence of the impact of culture and self-view on consumers' mental representations of brands."
With a booming global market place, Ng and Houston stress the need for more research into the area of consumer behavior and response across diverse cultures. The current research seeks a better understanding of the effects of self-view on brand associations and brand evaluation. The authors suspect that these effects may even go beyond brand associations, "… suggest[ing] implications for the way one stores information in general."
Sokling "Sharon" Ng and Michael J. Houston. "Exemplars or Beliefs? The Impact of Self-View on the Nature and Relative Influence of Brand Association." Journal of Consumer Research. March 2006.
Journal of Consumer Research