Professor Schmitt conducts research on marketing strategy, brand management, consumer behavior and experiential marketing. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Brand Management, Design Management Journal, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, California Management Review, Asian Journal of Marketing, and European Management Journal (among others.)

• Foreign branding and Its Effects on Product Perceptions and Attitudes
• Experiential Marketing: A New Framework for Design and Communications
• Managing Corporate and Brand identities in the Asia-Pacific Region
• Managing Corporate Image and Identity

• Consumer segmentation in China
• Who is the Chinese Consumer?
• Language structure and categorization
• Customer expectations for luxury hotels: A cross-cultural comparison
• Product-category dynamics and corporate identity in brand extensions: A comparison of Hong Kong and U.S. consumers
• The influence of culture on the self-expressive use of brands
• Symbols and icons in business and art

The BAT Chair of Marketing has the following research assistants at CEIBS in Shanghai. They may be contacted via email for further information.

Sally Li (Chinese Name: Li Songhong) Graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University in International Trade. Sally is an expert in computer applications and enjoys exploring new things.

Eva Xu (Chinese Name: Xu Hao) Graduated from University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. She likes travelling and she writes novels in her free time.

Consumer segmentation in China

Market research and consumer segmentation is still in its infancy in the People's Republic of China. Yet, marketers desperately need information about differential response patterns and consumer segments to formulate viable strategies for the drastically growing Chinese consumer market. This article presents the results of consumer surveys with hundreds of respondents conducted in Beijing and Shanghai in the spring of 1997. The data were analyzed using a new data-mining technique called self-organizing maps. The technique offers easy and convenient visualization of the data obtained without imposing stringent linear constrains on the data. Results indicated important differences in the number and type of consumer subsegments in the Beijing and Shanghai markets with respect to influences on purchase decisions (and, to some degree, lifestyles) but large similarities in media behavior, importance of product attributes, and brand attitudes. Marketers may use the results of the study as a model of how to collect and analyze consumer surveys to formulate strategies and tactics for the Chinese consumer market.

Who is the Chinese Consumer?

This article is a shortened and revised version of the inauguration speech that Bernd Schmitt delivered in October 1996 in Shanghai as the BAT Chair of Marketing at CEIBS. The article provides a review of three different segmentation approaches to the Chinese consumer market: geographic, demographic and psychographic/lifestyles segmentation. Given the increased segmentation of the Chinese market, especially in the cities, the article argues that psychographic/lifestyles segmentation is necessary for the marketing of consumer goods.

Language structure and categorization

This important paper has been accepted for publication in the prestigious Journal of Consumer Research, focusing on how a grammatical structure in Chinese that is not present in English affects thinking and consumer behavior. Six cross-cultural experiment were conducted in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Japan, and in the U.S. to investigate how classifiers affect mental structures and, in turn, consumer behavior. Experiments 1-4 show how classifiers affect the perceived similarity between objects, attribute accessibility and concept organization. Experiment 5 shows how classifier-based schemata result in inferences about product features. Experiment 6 provides evidence for the effect of classifier on judgement and choice via assimilation/contrast processes and affect transfer. The paper discusses the findings in light of the Whorfian Hypothesis ("language affects thought") and argues for the incorporation of structural components of languages into models of consumer behavior.

Customer expectations for luxury hotels: A cross-cultural comparison

An extensive cross-cultural project conducted in Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China, India and Pakistan as well as Canada and the U.S. to identify similarities and differences across cultures in customer expectations for services in luxury hotels. The research was supported by the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. Theoretically, the article focuses on the extent to which service expectations can be explained by differences in cultural values such as individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity-femininity. Methodologically, in-depth interviews were conducted and analyzed with a computer program based on the "laddering technique." In China, Ivy Fei conducted the interviews with business travellers. The research assistant of the BAT Chair also collected numerous print ads.

Product-category dynamics and corporate identity in brand extensions: A comparison of Hong Kong and U.S. consumers

Should the focus of a brand-extension strategy be on product-category related factors (e.g., the fit between the extension and the core product) or should consumers' attention be drawn to characteristics of the company providing the extension (e.g. company size)? Examining this issue experimentally in Hong Kong and in the United States with samples of students and working professionals, it was found that for U.S. consumers, perceived fit is much more important than company size; for Hong Kong consumers, company size does not matter for high fit extensions, but does matter for low fit extensions. It is suggested that the value of collectivism may explain the relative higher important of corporate identity for East Asian consumers. East Asian consumers rely on companies as interdependent, collective societal entities to reduce the risk of a low fit extension, whereas U.S. consumers---as individualists----place higher importance on their own judgement regarding the product fir rather than cues such as company size.

The influence of culture on the self-expressive use of brands

Using two cross-cultural experiments conducted in China and in the United States, the article examines how cultural orientation (individualism vs. collectivism) affects self-construal and in turn, evaluation of and memory for brands. When given feedback indicating that they were different, Chinese used brands to re-assert their similarity with others in the referent group. In contrast, when given feedback indicating that they were similar, US respondents used brands to differentiate themselves from referent others. Moreover, Chinese were more likely to overestimate the similarity of their own self with referent others, and remember information suggesting they were similar with reference others, while US respondents were more likely to remember information suggesting they were different from referent others. These results indicated that both individualists and collectivists use brands for self-expressive purposes. They do so, however, for different reasons: Collectivists' brand choice and memory are guided by a "similarity" self-schema; individualist's choice and memory are guided by a "uniqueness" self-schema.

Symbols and icons in business and art

This article is not a research article in the traditional sense but a critical essay about the work of Mr. Ji Wen Yu, an important contemporary Shanghai artist. The essay was published in an art catalogue and on Shangart Gallery's website.