Cross-National Logo Evaluation Analysis: An Individual-Level Approach

  • Authors:
  • Ralf van der Lans;Joseph A. Cote;Catherine A. Cole;Siew Meng Leong;Ale Smidts;Pamela W. Henderson;Christian Bluemelhuber;Paul A. Bottomley;John R. Doyle;Alexander Fedorikhin;Janakiraman Moorthy;B. Ramaseshan;Bernd H. Schmitt

  • Affiliations:
  • Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands;Department of Marketing, Washington State University, Vancouver, Washington 98686;Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242;NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117592;Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands;New Edge/The Brewery, Richland, Washington 99352;Centre Emile Bernheim, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1050 Brussels, Belgium;Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, United Kingdom;Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3EU, United Kingdom;Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Calcutta, India 700104;School of Marketing, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia 6845, Australia;Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027

  • Venue:
  • Marketing Science
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

The universality of design perception and response is tested using data collected from 10 countries: Argentina, Australia, China, Germany, Great Britain, India, The Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, and the United States. A Bayesian, finite-mixture, structural equation model is developed that identifies latent logo clusters while accounting for heterogeneity in evaluations. The concomitant variable approach allows cluster probabilities to be country specific. Rather than a priori defined clusters, our procedure provides a posteriori cross-national logo clusters based on consumer response similarity. Our model reduces the 10 countries to three cross-national clusters that respond differently to logo design dimensions: the West, Asia, and Russia. The dimensions underlying design are found to be similar across countries, suggesting that elaborateness, naturalness, and harmony are universal design dimensions. Responses (affect, shared meaning, subjective familiarity, and true and false recognition) to logo design dimensions (elaborateness, naturalness, and harmony) and elements (repetition, proportion, and parallelism) are also relatively consistent, although we find minor differences across clusters. Our results suggest that managers can implement a global logo strategy, but they also can optimize logos for specific countries if desired.