한류가 한국 화장품 브랜드의 이미지에 미치는 영향: 한류 광고 vs. 국가이미지 효과

Abstract

본 연구는 중국에서의 한류가 우리나라 브랜드 이미지에 미치는 영향을 실증적으로 검증하고자 하는 연구이다. 구체적으로 본 연구에서는 한류가 한국 브랜드의 이미지에 미치는 효과는 한류 스타를 활용하는 광고와 함께 한류에 의해 형성되는 호의적인 국가 이미지에 의해 발생한다는 가설을 제시하고 검증하고자 하였다. 그리고 한류를 한국 TV드라마 호감도와 한류스타 호감도로 구분하여 살펴보았다. 실증 분석을 위해 북경의 대학원 여학생 181명 표본으로 한국 화장품 브랜드를 대상으로 설문조사를 실시하였다, 검증 결과, 한류가 국가이미지 제고와 한류스타 광고를 통해 한국 브랜드 이미지에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 이와 함께 좀 더 흥미로운 결과로, 한류 스타 광고를 통한 효과보다 한류가 국가이미지 제고를 통한 효과가 더 큰 것으로 발견되었다. 동시에 TV드라마 호감도보다 한류 스타 호감도의 효과가 더 큰 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 결과는 한류가 한류 마케팅의 지원 없이도 국가이미지 향상을 통해 우리나라 브랜드 이미지에 긍정적으로 작용하고, 그리고 한류의 효과를 극대화시키기 위해서는 한류 스타 개발 및 지원이 필요함을 시사해준다.This study is intended to empirically examine how the Korean wave in China affects Chinese consumers` images of Korean cosmetics brands. Specifically it is proposed that the Korean wave positively influences images of Korean cosmetics brands through favorable Korean images and favorable attitudes toward advertisements featuring Korean drama stars. Many Korean marketers, in order to captialize on goodwill built through popular Korea TV dramas and stars, have employed TV advertising featuring Korean TV stars. In other words, the Korean Wave in China may lead to Chinese favorable perceptions of Korean brands through Korean wave advertising. On the other hand, one can argue that the Korean wave can lead to Chinese favorable images toward Korean brands without Korean wave advertising. the Korean wave can lead to favorable images of Korea, which may influence Chinese perceptions of Korean brands throuhg country-of-origin effects. Therefore, we examine two possible paths on how the Korean wave may affect Chinese images of Korean cosmetic brands through Korean wave advertising and country-of-origin effects. The Korean wave was examined with Chinese affections toward Korean television dramas and drama stars. A structural model was proposed to test these propositions. Surveys were conducted with 181 young female Chinese in Peking. The respondents were mostly graduate students from two major universities in Peking. They were selected because firstly they were active users of cosmetics and secondly they were also believed to be reasonably familiar with Korean dramas and TV stars. We chose Korean stars and cosmetic brands which are quite well known to the respondents. They were Song Hye Kyo and Bae Yong Jun with Laneige and The Face Shop brands. We tested internal consistencies of the measures through Cronbach alpha coefficients and congeneric reliabilities, convergent and nomological validities through confirmatory factor analysis. We found that our measures were reasonably reliable and valid. In addition, Amos 6.0 was employed to estimate structural path coefficients. The overall goodness of fit indices for the model were reasonable good, which suggest a reasonable good fit for the proposed model. The findings suggest that Chinese women with strong affection toward Korean television dramas and stars tend to have favorable images of Korea and favorable attitudes toward advertisements featuring Korean stars. and finally positive perceptions of Korean cosmetics brands. In addition, we found that Korean drama stars showed greater influence in images of the brands that do Korean dramas. Interestingly we also found that the mediating role of Korean country image in brand attitudes were greater than that of attitudes toward advertisements features Korean drama stars. Finally, marketing implications were discussed. Our findings suggest that Korean marketers without employing Korean wave advertising featuring Korean stars may still benefit greatly from goodwill built from the Korean wave. In addition, since stars` influences are greater than TV dramas, marketers perhaps ought to concentrate more on Korean stars than the content of TV dramas in their marketing.