Self-Discrepancy and Consumers' Attitude and Purchase Intention toward Counterfeits

Counterfeiting is an ongoing problem around the globe, despite global initiatives and political treaties to address the problem. One potential obstacle in effectively stopping counterfeiting and piracy is that we do not fully understand the motivations for engaging in the practice. This study advances our theoretical understanding of consumer responses to counterfeit brands by examining how consumer’s self-concept and self-discrepancy (between actual self and ideal self) can influence his or her attitude and purchase intention toward counterfeits. Our findings support the view that discrepancy between actual self and ideal self has a positive effect on consumer’s attitude and purchase intention toward counterfeits. In addition, we identify three important variables namely cultural background, product categories and self-monitoring that would influence the self-discrepancy effect and find out the self-discrepancy effect is even more pronounced in individualist culture than in collectivist culture. As for the cross-category differences, US and Hong Kong display the opposite pattern with stronger effect detected in privately consumed products among US consumers and in publicly consumed products among Hong Kong consumers. Furthermore, self-monitoring weakens the self-discrepancy effect in US while strengthens the effect in Hong Kong. The results have important implications for both academic and marketing managers.