Study of consumer perception towards brands endorsing hypernationalism

Abstract

In a globalized marketplace, there is evolving competition between different brands. Recent economic events have also created an increased passion and interest in one’s country. Nationalism has crawled in pan-nationally through the symbols of the nation-state, slogans, anthems, flags and pride in history. This has paved way to the objective of this study to understand Consumer perception towards brands that leverage hyper nationalism trend and its role in the purchase decision in Indian context. The aim is to understand the effect of nationalism and cultural orientation on customer preferences. The study outlined six psychographic variables – Patriotism, Culture/Ethnicity, Loyalty to national brands, Awareness of day-to-day news, Political orientation and Pride in Indian history to understand its impact on the purchase decision. Patriotism, Culture/Ethnicity and Pride in Indian History turned out to be dominant variables in influencing purchase decision whereas Loyalty to national brands, Awareness of day-to-day news, Political orientation were not significant. Also, consumers consider Indian brands high on availability and value for money but rate less in terms of quality. When consumers were presented with Indian brand and Foreign brand given same price, then consumers choose the foreign brand. Price and quality surpass the psychographic intent of purchase driven by hyper nationalism.