Abstract

Purpose: As consumers have difficulty in brand choice due to excessive information, using brand popularity as an advertising cue (e.g., Sales No. 1, Hit Product) has been getting more attention as an effective curation strategy for decreasing consumers' cognitive efforts. Accordingly, recent studies empirically demonstrate that consumers tend to prefer and choose a brand with a popularity cue and offer a useful information regarding how to use a popularity cue in marketing communication. However, extant research has mainly focused on investigating the impact of "brand popularity in a domestic market" on consumer behaviors. Thus, little is known about the effect of "brand popularity in a foreign market" on local consumers' decision-making process. Given that domestic consumers tend to purchase imported products from overseas countries, it can be meaningful information for global companies. Therefore, this research derives and tests the five hypotheses to examine how local consumers respond to brand popularity in a foreign market as an advertising cue. Specifically, it tests the three hypotheses regarding the direct and indirect effects of brand popularity in a foreign market on risk perception and purchase intention. Then, it tests two additional hypotheses about moderating effects of psychic distance on the relationship between brand popularity and risk perception as well as on the relationship between brand popularity and purchase intention. Seventy participants are exposed to an advertisement for an Indian cosmetic brand using a popularity cue in Indian market and answer the questions about brand evaluation. For data analysis, regression analysis is employed. The findings of this research show that perceived brand popularity lowers local consumers' perceived risk with a foreign brand. However, perceived brand popularity does not have a direct impact on purchase intention while it has an indirect effect through perceived risk. Meanwhile, psychic distance moderates the effect of perceived brand popularity on perceived risk level, but it has no impact on the relationship between brand popularity and purchase intention. This research is one of the first studies that demonstrate the positive impact of brand popularity in a foreign market on a local consumer's purchase decision, and it shows the effect can be moderated by psychic distance.