| Summary: | Purpose: The study intends to expand the current literature on Italian consumers’ brand preferences between local vs. global alternatives in the specific Italian food sector.
Design/methodology/approach: This study draws on concepts largely investigated like cultural identity theory, consumer ethnocentrism, and product category involvement to examine the mechanisms that drive Italian consumers to prefer alternative local or global brands in the food sector. A non-hierarchical cluster analysis represents the core part of the quantitative research that involved 412 participants.
Findings: By confirming the validity of existing studies, the present paper contributes to the food consumption literature by testing a conceptual model that integrates previous research concepts, thus deepening the analysis of the factors affecting Italian consumers’ food brand preferences. The cluster analysis allowed for dividing Italian consumers into two distinguished groups with characteristics coherent inside the same group.
Research limitations/implications: This study emphasizes the key relevance of the investigated variables in the implementation of positioning and communication strategies aimed at meeting the needs of specific markets in which firms operate, and it highlights the importance of analyzing those variables together. The sample composed of Italian consumers did not allow the generalizability of the results. Furthermore, this study focuses on the narrow category of chocolate bar products. Therefore, this does not permit the results to be generalized to other food products.
Originality/value: The novel research is based on signaling theory that contributes to the local and global branding domains from the Italian perspective. This work is also the first to analyze the food sector and the importance that Italians attribute to their food products and traditions through a cluster analysis approach.
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