An Examination of the Impact of Cultural Values on Brand Preferences in Tehran's Fashion Market

Consumers’ brand preferences and loyalty is what has obsessed minds of consumer behavior analysts for many years. There are, definitely, many factors influencing this process but undoubtedly, culture is the most effective factor on a consumer's behavior which is presented in the values and norms a society emphasizes. Culture affects consumer's buying behavior due to its emergence in the values they focus. Since values are long lasting, efforts to change them are useless. So, marketers almost always try to swim along the waves of culture rather than against them. Every culture consists of a series of values which are transferred to its members. One of the most common views in brand preferences studies is the self-congruity theory, according to which a consumer's behavior is to a great extent defined by comparing one's self image with the brand personality of a product. This theory plays an important role in marketing as it is mentioned that consumers are mainly influenced by their self-image, especially when making fashion buying decisions. This paper focuses on how much brand preferences are identified by cultural values of consumers and to what extent each construct of values can explain brand preferences in Iranian context. Brand preference in this research is measured using a brand personality scale. Values are also measured using list of values (LOV). Hence, a sample of 313 consumers of Adidas, Nike and Holiday sports clothes was selected in Tehran. Structural equation modeling technique and one-way ANOVA were utilized for data analysis.