The purpose of this paper is to investigate young New Zealand shoppers' ethnocentricity and brand perceptions by extending the research of O'Cass and Lim. The paper does this by looking at the relationship between ethnocentrism and brand choices, and by investigating whether young New Zealand shoppers have different price and brand‐user image congruency perceptions for local and foreign brands.
A total of six hypotheses were tested using data gathered from a mall intercept survey of 208 respondents aged between 16 and 25 years. The shoppers were measured through a series of Likert‐scale questions from the O'Cass and Lim study, the Shimp and Sharma CETSCALE items, and a range of demographic characteristic items.
Young New Zealand shoppers are about mid‐level internationally in terms of ethnocentrism, and ethnocentricity does not have an influence on their perceptions of brands. Price perceptions and self/brand user congruency perceptions are important to young New Zealand shoppers, and these are different for local versus foreign brands.
Foreign brands do not suffer from ethnocentricity but they do have a distorted (high) price perception amongst young New Zealand shoppers, suggesting a need for marketing aimed at dispelling this misperception. There is also a lack of congruency with brands, indicating that more active promotions with stronger and more distinct brand images are required.
This is one of the first studies to examine young New Zealand shoppers in any context, and is the only study to link young New Zealand shoppers with other international studies of ethnocentrism and brand perceptions. While adding to the understanding of brand perceptions it also provides practitioners with insights into young shoppers' perspectives on international brands.
