KOREASCHOLAR

The world has changed dramatically, and the concern with regard to environmental and social impacts of economic activity have become hot issues that have been extensively discussed. Many marketers are applying sustainability as the part of their CSR and consumers are becoming more involved in ethical value of sustainable issues. However, yet, most people still perceive sustainable products as “alternatives” due to various reasons like price, design or simply unfamiliarity with the brand (Niinimaki, 2010). In a current situation where more and more brands are coming to the market offering the variety of choice of sustainable product, brand popularity can be a signal, or cue that help consumers to decide those of unfamiliar sustainable brand because brand popularity can influence the evaluation and decision in the sense that consumers perceive popular brand not only as trustworthy, but also superior to others (Dean, 1999).In terms of brand popularity, “popular” brands tend to acquire more favorable evaluations and larger user shares with, rather than without the popularity component. However, with such characteristics, brand popularity concept can be used within a cue utilization theory, which suggests that products consist of an array of cues (extrinsic and intrinsic) that serves as indicators of quality for consumers when they make decisions related to the product (Olsen, 1972), delivering brand popularity by extrinsic cue through advertising. In addition, the signaling theory suggests that when brand is ranked as popular, consumers assume there are trust and confidence behind the brand, which reduce their level of uncertainty (Dean, 1999). As such, while it has been argued that this cue could be useful as it provides a certain value to consumers and influence their opinion about the brand and, consequently, purchase decision, up to now, there are little studies that use the brand popularity concept as extrinsic cue.Along with the issue of brand popularity, although different consumers around the world make their decisions based on their own mental or physiological orientation, and the difference among consumer behavior has been widely studied and reported, yet, most of sustainable marketing campaigns are made in the similar fashion, without adapting them to specific traits of consumers in different countries. However, in order for sustainable The world has changed dramatically, and the concern with regard to environmental and social impacts of economic activity have become hot issues that have been extensively discussed. Many marketers are applying sustainability as the part of their CSR and consumers are becoming more involved in ethical value of sustainable issues. However, yet, most people still perceive sustainable products as “alternatives” due to various reasons like price, design or simply unfamiliarity with the brand (Niinimaki, 2010). In a current situation where more and more brands are coming to the market offering the variety of choice of sustainable product, brand popularity can be a signal, or cue that help consumers to decide those of unfamiliar sustainable brand because brand popularity can influence the evaluation and decision in the sense that consumers perceive popular brand not only as trustworthy, but also superior to others (Dean, 1999). In terms of brand popularity, “popular” brands tend to acquire more favorable evaluations and larger user shares with, rather than without the popularity component. However, with such characteristics, brand popularity concept can be used within a cue utilization theory, which suggests that products consist of an array of cues (extrinsic and intrinsic) that serves as indicators of quality for consumers when they make decisions related to the product (Olsen, 1972), delivering brand popularity by extrinsic cue through advertising. In addition, the signaling theory suggests that when brand is ranked as popular, consumers assume there are trust and confidence behind the brand, which reduce their level of uncertainty (Dean, 1999). As such, while it has been argued that this cue could be useful as it provides a certain value to consumers and influence their opinion about the brand and, consequently, purchase decision, up to now, there are little studies that use the brand popularity concept as extrinsic cue. Along with the issue of brand popularity, although different consumers around the world make their decisions based on their own mental or physiological orientation, and the difference among consumer behavior has been widely studied and reported, yet, most of sustainable marketing campaigns are made in the similar fashion, without adapting them to specific traits of consumers in different countries. However, in order for sustainable brand to become main stream it is important to understand how the traits of consumers from other countries differ. Thus, it is important to understand the cultural difference in terms of marketing.Therefore, this study adapts brand popularity concept as an extrinsic cue that serves as a certain indicator for consumers (Dean, 1999) and consumer decision making styles as mental characteristics for shopping orientation (Sproles & Kendall, 1986) in order to see cross-cultural difference in consumers’ perception of sustainability brand among 3 countries: Korea, China and Russia. Choice of countries is not only resulting from the difference in behavior and attitudes towards sustainable consumption of Greendex (National Geographic & Globescan, 2013), but also, the difference among countries even when belonging as a part of Asia. Thus this study investigates overall consumers’ decision making style among three countries of South Korea, China, and Russia to find the effect of brand popularity on brand evaluation. Additionally, the moderating effect of fashion leadership and sustainability involvement was preceded. From this, it aims to provide implication for positioning and marketing sustainable brand in accordance to the difference consumer segmentation. A study was designed to determine which dimensions of consumer style inventory of country are most frequently associated in accordance to countries and whether brand popularity had affect on purchase intention of sustainable brand. The hypotheses were tested with a data set developed form field survey. The study was conducted cross-nationally in Korea, China, and Russia using online and offline survey. The survey questionnaire reflected a quasi-experimental design. The between-subjects design employed consisted of two between-subject factors of brand popularity and consumer decision-making style. The factor brand popularity had two levels: one provided with a brand popularity ranking as an extrinsic cue and one without. The resultant questionnaire was pretest by natives before distributing. No discrepancies among the surveys were reported. The consumer decision making style had three levels of Korea, China, and Russia. The questionnaire was pretest by 30 fashion marketing researchers before distributing. Of the 376 samples collected, 6 were returned incomplete. An additional 18 samples were deleted for further analysis as the answers were unusable. In total 352 samples – 113, 121 and 118 samples from Korea, China and Russia respectively – were subjected for final analysis.A one-way MANOVA revealed a significant multivariate main effect for consumer decision making style of the nation (Pillai’s trace = .23, F (10, 676) = 9, p <. 000). Given the significance of the overall test, the univariate main effects were examined. Significant univariate main effects for consumer decision making style of nation were obtained for quality (F = 6.95, p <.01), for uniqueness (F =7.54 , p <.01), for favorability (F =6.94 , p <.01), and for purchase intension (F =4.33 , p <.05). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in popularity among Korea, China, and Russia. In case of Korea, the effect of brand popularity yielded significantly higher mean score when it was presented. However, for China, the effect of brand popularity was significant as well (Pillai’s trace = .10, F (5, 114) = 2.45, p <. 05). Meanwhile, the outcome of Russia had different aspect to the prior two countries with no significant difference at all. The t-test provides evidence to support the claim that the effect of brand popularity differs according to the consumer decision making style of nations. Participants were placed into "high" or "low" fashion leader groups on the basis of previously obtained attitude. The group was divided according to the mean value (X = 2.98). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in fashion leadership among Korea, China, and Russia. In case of Korea, the effect of fashion leadership was not shown significant. However for China, the effect of fashion leadership was significant (Pillai’s trace = .31, F (5, 114) = 10.27, p <. 001). Russia also had dramatic effect of fashion leadership (Pillai’s trace = .12, F (5, 110) = 3.03). Significant nation pairwise differences were obtained in sustainability involvement among Korea, China, and Russia. The significant dependent variables appear differed by nations. In case of Korea, the effect of sustainability involvement was significant (Pillai’s trace = .17, F (5, 105) = 4.33, p <. 01). Similarly, the effect of sustainability involvement in China was significant (Pillai’s trace = .20, F (5, 114) = 5.82, p <. 001). The result of Russian was not significant. This study examines the overall effect of brand popularity and consumer decision making styles among three countries: South Korea, China, and Russia on customer evaluation of sustainable brand with the moderate role of fashion leadership and sustainability involvement. This study found that the effect of brand popularity differs according to the consumer decision making style of nations, fashion leadership, and sustainability involvement. Thus, consumer culture should be considered when applying such communication strategy. The result revealed that first hypothesis that brand popularity will affect consumer evaluation on the sustainable brand was denied. This can be explained due to the experimental condition of this study where it applied a virtual brand and the virtual institutions for evaluation. However, in more specific, this can be described as due to the cross national method of this study. The previous studies only focus on proceeding study in one country (Kim & Chung,1997; Rao & Monroe, 1988). It was found that Koreans tend to be more recreational, impulsive, confused by overchoice, brand conscious, and habitual whereas China brand conscious, impulsive, and less confused by overchoice. Russia was scored significantly low on all above mentioned criteria. The moderating effect of consumer decision making style of nation was investigated. The result indicated significant difference of consumer decision making style of nation. Whereas Korean had positive effect of brand popularity on brand evaluation when presented, China showed negative influence, and Russia had no significant impact. This can be due to the Korean consumers’ tendency to value trust and reputation. Individual Korean consumers tend to buy products of large we The third hypothesis of fashion leadership negatively affecting the effect of brand popularity was also partially supported. The significant dependent variables appear differed by nations. In case of Korea, the effect of fashion leadership did not shown significant, yet China and Russia did. However, while China had positive effect of brand popularity, especially to those with high fashion leadership, Russia had negative effect of brand popularity. The difference on consumer decision making style in between high and low fashion leadership groups was investigated. For Korea, involved subjects were significantly more novelty conscious, hedonic shopper, habitual. In case of China, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionism, brand conscious, novelty conscious, impulsive, confused by overchoice, and habitual Lastly, for Russia, involved subjects were significantly less brand conscious novelty conscious, hedonic, impulsive, and habitual. The result of Korea can be inferred as the high trend sensitivity of Koreans. With less difference in consumer decision making style in between high fashion leaders and low fashion leaders, compared to the other two countries, the effect may have not been clearly shown. The result of China and Russia can be interpreted as that the Chinese fashion leaders being more brand conscious caused higher result when the brand popularity was provided. Yet, in Russian fashion leaders who are less brand conscious and less impulsive may have affected the rigid attitude towards the well-known sustainable brand. Lastly, the effect of sustainability involvement was examined. In case of Korea, the effect of sustainability involvement was significant. Similarly, the effect of sustainability involvement in China was significant. The result of Russian was not significant. "high" and "low" fashion leadership groups differed in their decision making style by nation. For Korea, involved subjects were significantly more novelty conscious, hedonic shopper, and more habitual. In case of China, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionist, brand conscious, novelty conscious, hedonic, impulsive, confused by overchoice, and habitual. Lastly, for Russia, involved subjects were significantly more perfectionist. The difference of the result can be explained through the distinctive culture of each country along with the result of the consumer decision making style of the highly involved groups from each country. Koreans, as mentioned above, the effect popularity cue works stronger than other countries. The tendency of preferring products with powerful brand name would have affected the result as expected. However in case of China, along with that Chinese having suspicious perception on institutional documents, significantly being brand apathy may also explain the result. In addition, Russia overall had a high score of sustainability, which can relate to the fact that although slight decrease in its Greendex recently, it has been ranked for several years now, the sustainability value itself may have worked as a intrinsic value of the brand rather than brand popularity cue.ll-known companies rather than small and unfamiliar ones (Kim & Zhang, 2009). The result of China can be explained with Chinese consumers’ characteristics of having suspicious perception on transparency of the enterprise information (Brandvista, 2013). Especially distrust on official data or the governmental exists. With Russians result, this finding are supported by several previous research that suggests that new brands coming to Russian market at the very high speed and disappears quickly due to complexity of the market, thus consumers don’t have time to strongly attach to one brand (Peskova, 2007).

• Haesung Whang(Yonsei University)
• Ting Zhang(Yonsei University)
• Eunju Ko(Yonsei University)
• Ik Choi(Fashionland Co., Ltd.)