برد دلها، اذهان و فروش: چگونه ارتباطات بازاریابی وارد فرایند خرید در حال ظهور و بازارهای پخته می شوند

Consumers differ in the way their minds and hearts respond to marketing communication. Recent research has quantified effectiveness criteria of mindset metrics, such as brand consideration and liking, in the purchase process for a mature market. This paper develops and illustrates our conceptual framework of how mindset effectiveness differs between an emerging market and a mature market. We propose that the responsiveness, stickiness and sales conversion of mindset metrics depend on the regulative, cultural and economic systems that provide structure to society. In particular, we focus on regulative protection, collectivism and income. First, we propose that a lack of regulative protection leads consumers to be more attentive to, and thus more aware of, marketing communication. Second, we propose that consumers living in a collectivist culture are less responsive to advertising in their consideration and liking of the advertised brand. Finally, we propose that lower income among consumers reduces the sales conversion of brand liking. We examine our predictions empirically with data for the same brands during the same time period in Brazil and the United Kingdom. First, we find that brand liking has a higher responsiveness to advertising, a higher stickiness and a higher sales conversion in the U.K. than it does in Brazil. Thus, the advice to focus on the emotional brand connection is more appropriate in the analyzed mature market versus the emerging market. In contrast, knowing the brand is more important to purchase in Brazil and is more responsive to advertising. These first findings establish an intriguing research agenda on winning hearts and sales in emerging and mature markets.

Both the opportunities and the threats of increasing globalization have created an urgency for companies to succeed in international markets (Burgess and Steenkamp, 2006 and Chao et al., 2003). Companies from mature markets strive to win hearts and sales in emerging markets, which will account for most of the economic growth in the coming decades. For example, General Motors and Peugeot struggled to obtain a share of the Chinese market (Biziouras and Crawford, 1997 and Engardio et al., 2001), at least in part due to cultural misunderstandings (Chen, 2001). At the same time, brands from emerging markets, such as Lenovo and Haier, struggle to succeed in mature markets (Pukthuanthong & Roll, 2009) at least in part because they lack a strong emotional connection with their customers (Lindstrom, 2011 and Wang, 2008). The opening quotes illustrate the clash between views that marketing principles are universally applicable and observations of different consumers' responsiveness to marketing communication. Is it truly the case that, in emerging markets, “building consumer hearts and minds” (Kotler & Pfoertsch, 2010) translates into higher sales? Can systematic differences in emerging versus mature markets help us predict how marketing communication enters the purchase process and converts into sales? These are the questions that guide us in this paper. Despite considerable research on emerging markets, important knowledge gaps remain on whether and how marketers can influence consumer perceptions, attitudes and intentions — all of which we refer to as the “consumer mindset”. While some researchers find that cognitive decision processes are universal across consumers (e.g., Aaker and Maheswaran, 1997 and Douglas and Craig, 1997), they leave open the possibility of substantial differences in the extent to which the process components influence purchase and the power of marketing to affect this process. Such issues are largely unanswered in cross-cultural marketing research, which has focused on country-of-origin effects, consumer perception of local versus global brands (e.g., Batra et al., 2000, Ozsomer, 2012 and Steenkamp et al., 2003) and the content of advertising appeals (e.g., Aaker and Williams, 1998 and Han and Shavitt, 1994). Though important, these factors do not address a more general question. Should brand managers focus on moving the needle on different aspects of the consumer mindset in emerging versus mature markets? Recent conceptual papers hint that this may be the case. For example, Burgess and Steenkamp (2011) and Cayla and Arnould (2008) highlight cultural differences in the importance of individual versus group decision making as a key reason for different branding strategies in emerging versus mature markets. What is currently missing is a conceptual model and empirical approach to analyze these differences and provide guidance to marketers aiming to increase brand sales in emerging and mature markets. We propose that marketing effectiveness differs in the extent to which consumers (1) become aware of marketing communication, (2) are open to change their minds and hearts and (3) change their buying patterns accordingly. These properties may differ from consumer (group) to consumer (group) within a country, but also should systematically differ among consumers from a mature versus an emerging market. If this is the case, conceptual arguments and findings regarding consumer attitudes and behavior based on mature markets may not hold in emerging markets. Key examples include the mandate that brands should be romantic and mysterious ‘love marks’ (Roberts, 2005), and the finding that brand liking is very responsive to advertising and converts strongly into sales (Hanssens, Pauwels, Srinivasan, & Vanhuele, 2010). Based on the three “pillars of institutions” in institutional context theory (Burgess and Steenkamp, 2006 and Scott, 2001), we propose that differences in regulative, cultural and economic systems reduce the generalizability of such findings. We analyze the extent of consumer protection as the regulative factor. As a key cultural difference, we focus on Hofstede's (1980) individualism/collectivism dimension and incorporate income level as the economic factor. Differences among these three systems translate into specific propositions on the marketing responsiveness and sales conversion of consumer mindset metrics. Our contributions are twofold. First, we provide a unifying conceptual framework to translate consumer differences into observable criteria of market-level mindset metrics. Second, we empirically demonstrate the proposed differences in a longitudinal hierarchical linear model estimated on a unique dataset containing marketing, sales and consumer mindset metrics in Brazil and the U.K. As an initial test of our framework, this empirical study provides novel insights on how marketing enters the purchase process in a major emerging and a major mature country market. The remainder of this paper moves from the research background to our conceptual framework and hypotheses. Next, we proceed with the empirical analysis that tests hypotheses on the level of market-aggregate metrics for Brazil and the U.K. After reporting the results, we broaden the specific findings into more general insights on how to advance research and help brands thrive in emerging and mature markets.

This paper presented and illustrated a conceptual framework of how effectiveness criteria for consumer mindset metrics operate differently in an emerging market versus a mature market. Based on regulative, cultural and economic differences between countries, we formalized our hypotheses on (1) the responsiveness and stickiness of communication awareness, (2) the responsiveness and stickiness of brand attitudes, and (3) the sales conversion of brand liking. As a first empirical assessment of the framework, we analyze these effects for a major emerging market, Brazil, versus a major mature market, the U.K. We find support for H1a, H1b, H2a and H3. Brand attitude consideration and liking are less responsive to marketing communication in Brazil than they are in the U.K. Brand liking has a lower sales conversion, while communication awareness has a higher sales conversion in Brazil than in the U.K. Moreover, communication awareness has a higher responsiveness to advertising in Brazil, which is the likely reason for its lower stickiness ( Bettman, 1979 and Burke and Srull, 1988). However, low responsiveness to advertising does not necessarily imply high stickiness. Contrary to H2b, brand liking is less sticky in Brazil than in the U.K. This may be due to the dynamic demographics in Brazil, which have both a younger population than the U.K. ( World Factbook, 2012) and witnesses a rapid increase of the middle class ( Broide, Hoefel, & Stul, 2012). As a result of such demographics, many consumers in emerging markets are first-time buyers in a product category ( Batra, 1999 and Burgess and Steenkamp, 2006). Such dynamic demographics may lead to higher instability in the brand liking metric. Future research is needed to examine whether the lower stickiness of liking also applies to other emerging markets. How would our results hold up in other emerging and mature markets? As our framework is general, we would predict the same responsiveness and conversion differences for emerging (mature) markets low (high) in regulative protection, individualism and income. However, different combinations of these institutional context factors would generate interesting new predictions. For instance, Spain scores relatively low among mature markets on Hofstede's (1980) scale of individualism (51/100, ranked 20th), while India scores relatively high among emerging markets (48/100, ranked 21st). At the same time, regulative protection and income differ substantially between these two countries, consistent with the U.K.–Brazil difference. Would Spain and India show similar advertising responsiveness of brand attitudes, but different advertising responsiveness of communication awareness and different sales conversion of liking? While our framework would predict so, future research is needed to verify this prediction. The regulative protection and income factors offer the additional benefit of studying changes over time, as the gap between emerging and mature markets is more likely to shrink with respect to those institutional context dimensions than with respect to the cultural factor (Inglehart & Baker, 2000). If consumers in an emerging country receive much better regulative protection against poor quality products, would they start paying less attention to marketing communication? And if economic prospects substantially deteriorate in a mature market, will the sales conversion of liking decline? These predictions derive from our framework, which requires further empirical validation. Below we discuss important research and managerial implications in the event such validation is successful. Regarding the advice for brands to become “romantic and mysterious” love marks (Roberts, 2005), our findings imply that the rewards of such a strategy may be much greater in a mature market such as the U.K. than in an emerging market such as Brazil. Indeed, the recent empirical finding that brand liking is highly responsive to advertising and converts strongly into sales (Hanssens et al., 2010) comes from a country (France) where most consumers are high in individualism, income and protection against poor-quality products. Our findings offer reason to believe that the Hanssens et al. (2010) result may not hold for consumers low in individualism and/or income. In our study, price increases liking, but decreases consideration. Just as Ferrari may be loved but remain out of reach for many in mature markets, relatively expensive packaged good brands may be liked by emerging market consumers who do not consider buying them in the foreseeable future. The lower sales conversion of brand liking also implies that a strong emotional connection with consumers may not be as important for brands in emerging markets as it is for brands in mature markets (though we acknowledge that, also in mature markets, several brands with a utilitarian focus succeed7). In this context, Western branding experts should exercise care when claiming that “China has no brands in any real sense” (Yong, 2005) and that Chinese consumers are “unable to define the features of a brand” as “the emotional connection is simply absent” (Lindstrom, 2011). Thus, we agree with Cayla and Arnould (2008, p. 7) and question the assumption of prominent marketing practitioners and academics that “the principles of building a strong brand are basically the same across cultures”. Similarly, brands born in emerging markets should be wary of carrying their assumptions into mature markets. For example, Hyundai now recognizes the need in the US market to move beyond a “left-brain choice” (value, fuel economy and lengthy warranty); as a result, it has begun to air ads that “aim to add an emotional connection and remind [people that] buying a Hyundai isn't just a rational choice” (Ad Age, 2011). What does this mean for marketing managers? First, patience is gold in an emerging market such as Brazil. That is, managers should immediately track whether consumers received the message, but then they need to give the social influence process time to flourish. Second, a pulse of the GRP spending should allow marketing communication to start the social influence process, which then requires little if any further stimulation due to the effect of word-of-mouth and stickiness in brand consideration. Third, a large portion of the marketing budget should aim to ensure that relevant consumer groups are aware of and consider the brand for purchase. Our framework and empirical analysis have several limitations that require further investigation. First, we base our propositions on consumer mindset (demand-side) metrics, without explicitly accounting for supply side considerations, such as infrastructure and political stability, or company factors, such as organizational absorption of the marketing concept (e.g., Nakata & Sivakumar, 2001), managerial focus (e.g., Adler and Bartholomew, 1992, Morris and Pitt, 1994 and Peterson, 1993) and degree of marketing program standardization (Jain, 1989). Second, our focus on aggregate-level mindset metrics requires us to infer the impact of individual consumer characteristics — controlled experiments are needed to directly demonstrate these links. Third, we use specific operationalizations of regulative, cultural and economic dimensions, and future research may investigate other measures. We do not expect our findings to be sensitive to alternative operationalizations — for one, we obtain similar results substituting Hofstede's (1980) individualism–collectivism scales with Schwartz's (1999) autonomy versus relatedness scales. Fourth, our empirical study only considers one product category in one emerging versus one mature market. Further studies are needed to determine the generalizability of our findings across markets and categories. Fifth, we base our empirical analysis on the same mindset metrics for the emerging and the mature market. Different mindset metrics could play a key role in emerging markets. Sixth, as consumer heterogeneity is substantial in both analyzed countries, further research may distinguish among regions, age cohorts and consumer segments. Last but not least, the question remains whether differences in mindset dynamics and marketing effectiveness are mostly driven by institutional, cultural or economic differences. The economic gap between currently emerging and mature markets may disappear within the next few decades, but the cultural differences are likely to remain (Inglehart & Baker, 2000). As countries transition from industrial to service-oriented economies, will consumers continue to choose the ‘safe bets’, i.e., brands with reliable quality and good service (Zhou, 2008) or will they be attracted to the ‘love marks’, i.e., brands that are “romantic, sensual and intimate” (Roberts, 2005)? Time will tell how this romance versus reliability dilemma will evolve.