A Multi Country Research Approach for Multinational Communication Strategies
The purpose of the study is to develop and test a practical approach to help determine when and how the promotion of a product could be standardized in a multinational context. The basis of the approach is the measurement of consumer involvement for the product in each country market by means of the Personal Involvement Inventory (PII) method. By factor analysis of the responses to the twenty scale questions and subsequent cluster analysis of the mean factor scores, each country market is assigned to a group of country markets with similar consumer interpretations. The results, based on the illustrative sample data, develop distinct clusters of country markets for the products under study. While further empirical research is necessary, the proposed approach appears to offer some promise if used in conjunction with factors such as commonality of value structures and sociodemographics in designing multinational marketing programs.