Marketing Universals: Consumers’ Use of Brand Name, Price, Physical Appearance, and Retailer Reputation as Signals of Product Quality
研究了不同文化背景下消费者是否普遍使用品牌、价格、外观和零售商声誉来判断电子产品质量，发现高优先级消费者群体中跨文化差异很小。
Marketing universals are defined as consumer behaviors within a segment and toward a particular product category that are invariant across cultures. Using several definitions of culture and three different criteria for universality, the authors evaluate whether the use of brand, price, retailer reputation, and physical product appearance as signals of quality are marketing universals for consumer electronics products. Using a sample representing 38 nationalities, they find that there are few differences in the use of quality signals across cultures for a high priority segment of consumers. They draw conclusions for the adaptation versus standardization debate and argue that certain behaviors are likely to be universal, whereas others are not. Understanding such differences is essential to designing international marketing strategies.