(55-67) Impacts of Multinational Firms’ Marketing Strategies on Kazakhstan Consumers

Abstract: The paper analyses how consumer perceptions are influenced by multinational firms’ marketing appeals and by other relevant factors. The paper presents findings from the analysis of secondary data of macro economic and cultural records and further report the results of a global brand image survey conducted in the automobile show and fashion clothes fair in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Moreover the paper suggests that while attitudes of consumers toward corporate images and product images exert a great deal of influence on their brand purchase behaviour, the effects of certain country-image appeals on brand purchase behaviour are moderated by the broad socio-demographics and national cultural characteristics. The results in general support the proposed hypotheses of (1) product images are positively correlated with country images; (2) product images are also positively correlated with the image of multinational firms; and (3) product images affect consumers’ brand choice favourably. Moreover the paper highlights the importance of global brand images and how they can be further improved by global marketing appeals.