Branded Products as a Passport to Global Citizenship: Perspectives from Developed and Developing Countries

This article focuses on belief in brands as a passport to global citizenship, defined as a person's perception that global brands create an imagined global identity. The authors assess the effects of this belief on the importance consumers assign to branded products and also examine the antecedent effects of cultural openness and consumer ethnocentrism. Their work focuses on the global youth market in the developing countries of Romania, Ukraine, and Russia and the developed U.S. market. The findings contribute to a broadened understanding of branding in a global marketplace by examining the associations between beliefs about global brands and the importance consumers attach to branded products in their daily lives.