Consumer Acculturation and Implications for Brand Preferences

This research investigates whether established theories of acculturation are applicable to British Indians and what impact acculturation has on their consumer behaviour. After classifying British Indians according to the acculturation framework devised by Berry (1980), the chapter considers whether membership of these acculturation categories has a bearing on British Indians' consumer behaviour, as indicated by their brand preferences for a range of host and ethnic products and services. The findings reveal that separated consumers prefer ethnic brands more than host brands, assimilated consumers prefer host brands more than ethnic brands and integrated consumers have brand preferences falling between these two. Acculturation category thus has POTENTIAL for use as a segmentation variable. Demographic factors have also been shown to influence patterns of acculturation (Berry 1997). This study therefore also examines the relationships between different acculturation categories, demographic variables and preferences for a range of ethnic and host brands. Overall, this research provides some interesting insights about buying preferences of Indian diaspora (a developing country) in the UK and is particularly relevant from an International marketing perspective

Personality, internet addiction, and other technological addictions: an update of the research literature

There has been a significant shift from the view that addictions are disorders involving compulsivedrug usage to a view that non-substance related behaviors may now be considered addictions. Thereis evidence to suggest that people are showing signs of addiction to non-substance-related behaviors.Research into technological addictions, such as internet addiction, smartphone addiction and socialnetworking addiction has exponentially increased over the last decade. Understanding how technologicaladdictions relate to personality and key individual differences is important. This chapter providesrenewed empirical and conceptual insights into technological addictions and how they may be relatedto different personality types and key individual differences. The complex nature of personality andtechnological addictions is discussed together with areas for future research