Brand and consumer characteristics as drivers of behaviour towards global and local brands

The main purpose of this research is to determine influence of brand and consumer characteristics on consumers' behaviour regarding purchase of global and local brands. Starting from Theory of planned behaviour and Theory of social identity several antecedents of consumers' attitudes were researched in proposed model-quality of brands, prestige, ethnocentrism and materialism. For this purpose, sample comprising of 329 respondents was collected. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity of the model and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to determine relationships between variables. Empirical research has shown that the factors of quality of local brands and ethnocentrism have a positive and statistically significant effect on the consumers' attitudes towards the local brands. On the other side, brand quality, prestige and materialism have a positive effect on the attitudes of consumers towards global brands, whereas ethnocentrism has a negative effect on attitudes towards this type of brands. In addition, research has shown that the attitudes have positive influence on consumers' behavioural intentions regarding purchase of both local and global brands and that consumers' intentions have positive effect on actual purchase of both types of brands. The main finding of the paper implies that the characteristics of consumers and brands influence consumer behaviour in terms of purchasing aforementioned types of brands. The conducted research has a scientific and practical contribution in terms of obtaining information about the factors that influence the consumers' decisions regarding the purchase of both local and global brands.