Putting Assumed Emotion in Fashion Brand Literacy: Understanding Brand-Identity Relationship in the Interdependent Asian Context

Over the past decade, consumer researchers have been interestedin understanding symbolic relationship between consumersand brands, especially on identity construction (Elliott &Wattanasuwan, 1998; Escalas & Bettman, 2005; Kirmani, 2009)and its implications on brand management (Arvidsson, 2005;Holt, 2002; 2004). Following a cultural-psychological view tostudy how culture shapes brand-identity relationship, Eckhardt(2000) addresses that little attention have been paid to understandconsumer behavior within interdependent cultures whencompare with the prolific account of western literatures that reportedthe consumption behavior with an independent selfconstrual.
This paper strives to address this absence through researchinghow a group of Chinese youngsters internalize their culturalvalues with a sense of assumed emotion and developedlocal specific brand literacy towards fashion brands¡¯ perceptionand consumption. Following Bengtsson and Firat (2006)¡¯s conceptof brand literacy, this interpretative research aims to extendour current understanding of symbolic brand consumptionand brand-identity relationship in particular to the interdependentAsian context. The literature review discusses previousstudies on brand symbolism in formulating brand-identityrelationship and how social psychological understanding of interdependentconstrual of self can be applied to consumerresearches. The cultural characteristics of Chinese consumersare also discussed with reference to previous indigenous consumerresearches on symbolic brand consumption.
As part of a greater project on fashion and brand consumptionexperience among young Chinese in Guangzhou, 18Chinese volunteers aged around 20 are recruited from localuniversities and colleges and become the main researchinformants. The fieldwork is conducted in Guangzhou. In-depthinterviews and participant observations are the main data collectionmethod. Triangulation analysis technique has beenadopted to review and cross-check data collected. Our findings and discussions demonstrate different dimensionsof assumed emotion (Hu, 1949) among the Chineseyoungsters in structuring their brand literacy. We discuss howcultural concern towards their social identities, including as students,sons/daughters, friends, and changing identities expectedin the future, may significantly impact the youngsters¡¯ fashionand brand value, perception and consumption. Through symbolicconsumption, the Chinese youngsters depict a sense ofculturally specific fashion and brand knowledge as demonstratedin their fashion choice, taste and consumption, in away that is culturally appropriate in fitting themselves in acomplex social network. Guided by this sense of assumedemotion, Chinese youngsters adopt the signs and meanings embeddedin brand names and its associated symbols to engagein the different social situations within their cultural setting.
This has resulted in a different construct of brand literacywithin the interdependent cultural context. An emergent themeis also found as there is a major difference in fashion brandsperceptions and choices between the urbanities (i.e. Guangzhoulocalities) and peripheries (i.e. outsiders) because of a culturaldifference in constructing their cosmopolitan identities(Thompson & Tambyah, 1999).
To conclude, this study has contributed to our understandingof brand-identity relationship in the interdependent Asiancontext. Consumers in the eastern cultures tend to be subjectedto integrate a larger socio-cultural context than maintaining individualisticpleasures as in western cultures. A greater concernof understanding the assumed emotion and how consumers assertedtheir social identities with symbolic fashion and brandconsumption would be a key to understand the consumptioncultures with interdependent self-construal.