Away from home: How young Chinese consumers travel with global brands?. (January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cappellini, Benedetta; Hosany, Sameer; Yen, Dorothy A.; Yu, Qionglei
• Is Part Of: Journal of retailing and consumer services. Volume 46(2019)
• Page Start: 87
• Page End: 94
• Publication Date: 2019-01
• Subjects: Global brands -- Brand meanings -- Chinese consumers -- Travelling consumers; Retail trade -- Periodicals; Service industries -- Periodicals; Customer services -- Periodicals; Commerce de détail -- Périodiques; Service à la clientèle -- Périodiques; Customer services; Retail trade; Periodicals; 658.87
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.10.012
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0969-6989

Abstract

Abstract: This interpretive study investigates how a group of young Chinese students consume global brands of American origins, in China and in the UK. More specifically, this research examines how meanings attached to global food brands travel abroad with consumers and investigates the relationship between brand consistency and brand meanings across national boundaries. Findings from a thematic analysis of focus group interviews conducted over a nine-month period, reveal that some brand meanings are context and culture specific ( contextual meanings ) while other meanings travel with consumers across borders ( core meanings ). Theoretically, this study shows how global brands provide a platform of structural meanings, ideas and practices that are global and globalising in themselves, allowing a degree of fluidity and adaptation in relation to the local context of consumption.