Evaluation of branding strategies for global versus local brand: The role of concept consistency

This paper aims to examine the moderating role of concept consistency in consumer evaluation of new product branding strategies for global versus local brands in the context of emerging economy India. A series of pretests were conducted prior to main experiment. The paper adopted multivariate analysis of variance approach to test the hypotheses. The results support the role of concept consistency in affecting the relationship between perceived brand globalness and branding strategy. It was evident from results that consumers favour global and local brand with extended brand name in high concept consistency cases and new brand name in low concept consistency situation. The findings imply that brand managers need to identify and measure the relevant types of concept consistency that will affect evaluation of branding strategies for global and local brands before introducing a new product to the market. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.