The Impact of Country Image and Celebrity Endorser Strategy on Purchase Intentions
Laras Antania Hanjani, Daniel Tumpal PhD
University of Indonesia
Abstract
The global market competition is getting intense, as well as the automotive industry. The Indonesian automotive industry is expected to grow positively in 2019, with target sales of new vehicles as many as 1.1 million units in 2019. Yet, Chinese car manufacturers flock to market their products in Indonesia. Country image become one of the important things for consumer to evaluate the quality of products. Previously, consumer-s perception about Chinese automotive products were considered as low quality inexpensive products, but now the trend is shifting. In the middle of 2018, DFSK (DongFengSokon) Chinese automotive products introduces a 7-seater SUV named ‘Glory 580- in Indonesia. DFSK using Agnez Monica as an endorser to support their brand. Agnez Monica consider to reflect the similarity of DFSK Glory 580-s personality; energetic, challenging, and expected to ‘go international-. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of country image (cognitive and affective) toward product image and purchase intention. And also investigate the success driver of marketing strategy by using celebrity endorser on purchase intention of DFSK Glory 580. A survey design was used to test the proposed linkages among the variables. Target of population of the survey was Indonesian consumers and automotive enthusiast.The study shows that the only cognitive country image that has significant impact to product image and purchase intention of China-s product, and there are only two endorser-s success driver that has significant impact to purchase intention of DFSK Glory 580.
Keywords: Country image, cognitive country image, affective country image, celebrity endorser, purchase intention
Topic: Management