Consumer culture imagery and foreign brands: Ad-brand incongruity and consumers' desire for authenticity

Extending prior brand schema incongruity research in the context of consumer culture positioning (CCP) strategies, the present study assesses the relative effectiveness of the three CCP strategies on ad attitude and brand responses. The results of a single factor (foreign vs. global vs. local CCP ad type) between-subjects experiment using a real brand, indicate a dominance of the moderately incongruent GCC imagery ads, with a positive influence on both ad attitude and purchase intention. Moderated-mediation analysis suggests that for consumer segments characterized by low preference for authenticity, linking a pre-existing foreign brand schema with GCC ad imagery can have favorable ad and brand effects. However, this effect is eliminated for consumers with a high preference for authenticity. The implications of the findings are discussed and future research directions are suggested.