GRIN Verlag The effectiveness of product placement for the automobile industry and its impact on consumer behavior: A cross-cultural perspective

Master's Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: A (1,0), Hawai'i Pacific University, language: English, abstract: The use and practice of product placement - also referred to as brand placement - has risen dramatically over the last few years. Here, especially the automobile industry is a major player by spending millions of dollars for strategically placing products and brands not only in blockbusters and movies, but increasingly also in various television programs, print media, and video games. This research paper investigates the effective of product placement for the automobile industry and its actual effect on consumer behavior. However, consumers' attitudes, perceptions, and values tend to differ depending on their culture; thus, further research shall concentrate on the possible differences between American, European, and Asian consumers. First, the introduction will state the objective of the study as well as research purposes. Next, the background of the study will present a conceptual framework, theoretical foundations on which the research will be based, development of research questions that are to be answered, and a hypotheses development. As it follows, the research methodology will formulate the information needs and data collection methods, the questionnaire development, and the sample design. The data analyses and findings part will use descriptive statistics and present the results from the quantitative research as well as other findings. Ultimately, in the conclusion the findings and results will be discussed, limitations of the study will be acknowledged, and possibilities for future research will be stated. [...]