BRAND POPULARITY, COUNTRY IMAGE AND MARKET SHARE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY.

This study examines how brand popularity in conjunction with other marketing variables influences market share directly as well as indirectly by interacting with country-related intangible assets (or simply country image). The results of our empirical analysis show that a competitive analysis without the recognition of country image would be misleading. We found that country-specific intangible assets exist and that they significantly interact with marketing variables differently for U.S. and Japanese brands in the subcompact car market in the USA. Brand popularity and advertising were found to be key factors for intangible assets for both the U.S. and the Japanese brands. Brand popularity was the most significant factor for market share in both the short run and the long run. Japanese firms' direct investment (FDI) in the target country directly influenced market share only in the short run. Several important Implications for international marketing are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]