How Chinese Face Perception Influences Consumer’s Implicit and Explicit Attitude towards Brand Country of Origin

Chinese people pay much attention to their faces. Face plays a very important role in Chinese daily life. Chinese people usually do kinds of Face Works in order to earn face, enhance face, or save face. Face work influences consumer’s attitude toward brand country of origin (BCO) in China market. What’s more, face work makes it different between implicit and explicit attitudes towards a certain brand. Although existing literatures have verified some factors that affect implicit and explicit attitudes towards BCO, few research study the effect of face perception on BCO. The study uses both questionnaire and IAT technique to measure the effect of face perception on the implicit and explicit attitudes toward BCO. Results showed that: (1) consumers with high face perception have a more positive explicit attitude toward Japanese /American brands, and (2) face perception moderates the relationship between implicit and explicit attitudes towards BCO.