Frontiers in Business, Economics and Management ISSN: 2766-824X | Vol. 1, No. 3, 2021 22 Influence of Brand Internationalization on Brand Image and Quality Perception Yangsuoyi Wu1, Baolu Wang1, Zhenzhong Wang2, Yuxiao Zhao1 1Beijing Institution of Fashion Technology, Fashion Art and Engineering, Beijing, 10029, China 2Advanced Institute of Information Technology, Peking University, Zhejiang, 311200, China Abstract: In order to meet the "4.0" industrial strategy, increase the brand awareness of Chinese enterprises and sales, this paper makes an empirical study on the internationalization of clothing brands in the context of consumer cognition, further study on the brand internationalization and brand awareness, clear out of the mathematical relationship between the clothing brand internationalization and consumer brand awareness, indicating the brand internationalization direction at present domestic clothing brands provide advice and theoretical guidance for its development route. Keywords: Clothing brand internationalization, Consumers, Brand image, Quality perception. 1. Introduction In recent years, developed countries have been competing to launch the strategy of "industry 4.0" and other revitalization of manufacturing industry, which means that in the reconstruction of the global economic layout, it is an urgent issue for Chinese brands to integrate "Chinese creation" into "made in China". According to McKinsey, large enterprises account for 60% of the global business revenue, and developed countries have absolute monopoly on brands. Chinese manufacturing accounts for about 50% of the overseas market, but the proportion of independent brands is only 3% [1]. For a long time, consumers have believed that although the price advantage of Chinese manufacturing is obvious, the quality is uneven, and it takes luck to buy things, so the trust in Chinese manufacturing is not high. With the continuous improvement and upgrading of the industry, consumers have changed their views on Chinese manufacturing. Focusing on China's garment industry, garment production is competitive to a certain extent, but it lacks brand competitiveness. In order for domestic garment enterprises to reverse their current competitive disadvantages and occupy a place in the international market, they must realize brand internationalization as soon as possible, and create a Chinese garment brand with independent intellectual property rights, from Chinese manufacturing to Chinese creation. China's clothing industry is an important link in the international clothing industry chain, and "Made in China" has also become an important part of international clothing products. However, although Chinese-made clothing products have price advantages, Chinese clothing brands lack core competitiveness, and consumers' recognition of products is much lower than that of foreign brands. Therefore, learning the mature brand operation mode abroad, realizing the internationalization of the brand and improving the brand reputation have become the key to reverse the competitive disadvantage of the clothing brands in China. How to realize the internationalization of brand and whether the internationalization of brand can make consumers change their brand is the main problem to be discussed in this paper. Through literature review and questionnaire analysis, this paper selects 16 factors of brand internationalization, and from the perspective of consumer perception, chooses brand image and quality perception as the most intuitive dimensions to link with brand internationalization. Finally, it quantifies the promotion of international brands by studying consumers' cognition of brand image and product quality, which provides guidance for the internationalization of corporate brands. Qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in the study. The research idea is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Research method and step 23 2. Literature Review and Hypothesis 2.1. Definition of Brand Internationalization British scholar David·Jobber defines brand internationalization as the process of successful brand penetration in the world. Song Yonggao, a Chinese scholar, believes that brand internationalization is the behavior of enterprises to successfully push their own brands to other countries through brand regional extension. Wei Fuxiang believes that brand internationalization refers to a brand management strategy of extending and expanding the same brand to different countries with the same name, packaging and advertising planning. Because of the unification and standardization of products in the world market, it can bring economies of scale to enterprises. Generally speaking, the internationalization of brand is the behavior process of making an enterprise brand become an international brand, that is, a brand with certain international influence and recognized by consumers. The factors that scholars put forward on the factors of brand internationalization are the same in different places. For example, Jeryl & Fer nando believes that the internationalization factors of a brand include brand name, brand vision (such as brand logo, color), sound elements (such as slogan, advertising song), brand personality, etc. Chinese scholar Chen Xiaoli believes that internationalization factors include the globalization of brand culture models, the same brand image, unified brand equity (brand value), strategic management institutions, and brand penetration worldwide and operating in multiple countries. Li Jing proposed that internationalization should enter the international market, have many overseas stores, advanced business methods, recruit international talents, and raise funds overseas [2] [3]. 2.2. Brand Image and Quality Perception Theory Brand image is the aggregation of all the associations of consumers to the brand, which reflects the prospect of the brand in the memory of consumers. The establishment of brand image includes the results of marketing and non marketing activities. Consumers' perception of brand image can be obtained through both enterprise controlled and non enterprise controlled channels. Brand image can form a key reason for purchase. Usually, the better the brand image is, the better the brand extension is. Brand image must depend on the quality factors such as the function, characteristics, reliability, durability, appearance and service of the commodity itself [4] [5] [6] [7] [10]. Quality perception refers to the omni-directional perception of consumers on brand services and product quality. It is based on factors such as product or service characteristics associated with the brand. In reality, when consumers feel that their needs are not met in the process of using products or enjoying services, it will affect consumers' overall evaluation of the brand, making consumers unable to be loyal to the brand, and it is not conducive to the accumulation of brand equity [8] [9] [11] [12]. 2.3. Research Hypothesis All the above research results are mature. Brand internationalization is to enhance the brand's market competitiveness and occupy more market share. When consumers have a good perception of brand image and product quality, it is easy to produce purchase behavior and certain brand loyalty to achieve the purpose of capital accumulation. Brand image and quality perception, as consumers' most intuitive perception of brand and its products, are there some correlations between these two cognitive dimensions and brand internationalization factors? Can consumers change their brand and think that the image and quality of the brand have been improved after the corresponding changes in internationalization factors have been implemented? These two problems have become the problems that we need to discuss and verify. Based on the above theory, the hypothesis is put forward: the internationalization factors of clothing brand have a significant impact on the perception of brand image and quality. After the brand is internationalized, consumers will think that its brand image and product quality are better. 3. Research Design 3.1. Analysis of Brand Internationalization Factors The research mainly uses the methods of in-depth interviews and questionnaire surveys to capture the factors that influence brand internationalization. Table 1. Influencing factors of clothing brand internationalization Serial number Influencing factors Serial number Influence factor 1 International spokesperson 9 Globalization of brand culture model 2 Product value 10 Business characteristics (direct business, agency) 3 Target customer positioning 11 Brand identity 4 Brand Lenovo 12 Registered trademark 5 The allocation of international talents 13 Patent 6 Professional brand management agency 14 Process technology 7 Marketing area and country 15 Exquisite product packaging 8 Has a high reputation 16 Overseas financing Fifteen college students in Beijing were selected as the main subjects of in-depth interviews. According to the 20 internationalization factors extracted from the literature, 15 interviewees were interviewed. In addition to the proposed factors, most interviewees believe that "choosing famous stars as spokesmen" is also a factor of brand internationalization, so this factor was added in the selection. Combined with the characteristics of international brands, 16 items are drawn up after screening the repetitive conditions in the field of clothing (see Table 1): 24 3.2. Brand Image and Quality Perception scale The part of brand image and quality perception adopts a mature scale to reduce the error of empirical research. Table 2. Brand image measurement Scale Serial number Item Source 1 I think the brand is very influential in the apparel industry Bai Pengfei (2006) 2 I think the clothing brand is more consistent with my identity 3 I think this brand product is very different from other brand products Table 3. Quality perception measurement Scale Serial number Item Source 1 Compared with other non international brands, this international brand has quite high quality Yo. And Donthu: a consumer based measurement of brand equity Netemeyer (2004) Wang Haizhong: brand equity test library based on consumers and previous in-depth interviews 2 This international brand is the best of its kind 3 As far as clothing products are concerned, I think this international brand has better quality than other non international brands 4 I think the quality of this international clothing brand is more trustworthy than other non international brands The questionnaire is divided into five parts: brand selection, influencing factors of clothing brand internationalization, brand image, quality perception and personal information. Some of the scales used in this study are self-made scales through literature integration, while others directly adopt mature scales and modify them to some extent. Except for the first part of the questionnaire, the three indicators were scored with Likert five point scale. 1 means "totally disagree", 3 means "uncertain", 5 means "totally agree". 3.3. Sample Background In this survey, a total of 309 questionnaires were distributed online, of which 289 were valid questionnaires. Among the 289 valid questionnaires collected, the background information obtained is shown in Table 4, Figure 2, and Figure 3. Table 4. Basic information of the respondents Characteristic variable Survey object Number of people Proportion (%) Gender Male 149 51.6 Female 140 48.4 Total 289 100.0 Age Under 20 20 6.9 21-30 years old 236 81.7 31-40 years old 25 8.7 41-50 years old 8 2.8 Total 289 100.0 Figure 2. Professional distribution 4. Analysis of Research Results This study uses the form of online questionnaire, because the brand internationalization factor project is too many. Firstly, the reliability and validity of the questionnaire were studied by SPSS and factor analysis. The common factors of the items were extracted, classified and described. Then, the confirmatory factor analysis was carried out by AMOS software to determine the regression relationship and establish the structural equation model. 4.1. Reliability and Validity Test and Factor Analysis Through the reliability analysis of the three subscales of clothing brand internationalization, brand image and quality perception, the Cronbach internal consistency coefficient Alpha of the three subscales reached 0.870, 0.853 and 0.923 respectively. The Cronbach α values of the internal consistency of each dimension of the survey scale are all greater than 0.70, indicating that the internal consistency of the test or scale is relatively good, thus indicating that the survey data has high internal consistency. As shown in Table 5. 25 Table 5. Table of reliability analysis results Survey scale Cronbach's alpha coefficient Number of projects Factors of brand internationalization brand image Quality perception 0.870 0.853 0.923 16 3 4 In the process of factor analysis, Principal Factor Analysis and Varimax are used for factor rotation. After the maximum variance rotation, it shows that the factor load of each item is greater than 0.50, so it should be retained. The results in Table 6 show that the total variance explanation rate of the four factors is 75.53%, which is more than 60%, indicating that the validity of the international brand cognition scale is good. The rotated factor matrix table can classify 16 problem options into four types of factors, and name common factors A1-A5 as "F1 brand equity", which can explain the unified characteristics of the five factors. In the same way, "F2 brand penetration" is used as the naming of A6-A9, which includes the four factors of "professional brand management agency", "marketing region and country", "high visibility", and "globalization of brand culture model". A10-A12 choose "F3 brand management method and identification" to name the three items including "business characteristics", "brand logo" and "registered trademark", so directly choose "brand management method and identification". The naming of A13- A16 as "F4 Products and Financing" includes the four factors of "process technology", "patents", "exquisite product packaging" and "overseas financing" Table 6. Analysis and statistics of clothing brand internationalization factors Assembly Initial eigenvalue Extract the load sum of squares Sum of squares of rotational loads Total Variance percentage Cumulative% Total Variance percentage Cumulative% Total Variance percentage Cumulative% 1 5.465 34.155 34.155 5.465 34.155 34.155 3.557 22.230 22.230 2 2.794 17.464 51.620 2.794 17.464 51.620 3.227 20.169 42.400 3 2.150 13.438 65.058 2.150 13.438 65.058 2.887 18.045 60.444 4 1.676 10.472 75.530 1.676 10.472 75.530 2.414 15.086 75.530 5 .519 3.242 78.772 6 .480 2.999 81.771 7 .424 2.651 84.423 8 .402 2.510 86.933 9 .361 2.258 89.192 10 .327 2.044 91.236 11 .322 2.010 93.246 12 .265 1.658 94.904 13 .233 1.459 96.363 14 .219 1.369 97.732 15 .198 1.238 98.969 16 .165 1.031 100.000 Extraction method: principal component analysis. 4.2. Descriptive Statistical Analysis Results The descriptive statistical analysis of the various factors of the independent variables in the theoretical model of this study includes the calculation of the question item, the average value and the standard deviation. The descriptive analysis results of each factor of the survey scale show. As shown in Table 7. Table 7. Descriptive analysis of influencing factors of brand internationalization Common factor Sample size (N) Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation F2 brand penetration 289 1 5 3.70 0.965 F3 brand management method and recognition 289 1 5 3.39 1.082 F1 brand equity 289 1 5 3.22 1.014 F4 products and financing 289 1 5 3.09 1.109 It can be seen from the table that the average value of "brand penetration" is the highest, indicating that when a brand has high recognition, consumers will think it is an international brand. This study uses Likert five point scoring method, the median is 3, so the results show that: the score of each dimension is higher than the median level. Table 8 shows the details of brand penetration, taking this as an example. It can be seen from the table that, in the "brand penetration", the average value of the factor of "high popularity" reaches 3.88, indicating that consumers think that a clothing brand is an international brand with high popularity. The average value of "professional brand management organization" also reached 3.78, indicating that most consumers think that a clothing brand can be regarded as an international brand if it has a special brand management organization or department to manage its overseas business. 26 Table 8. Descriptive analysis of F2 Item Sample size (N) Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation A8 Has a high reputation 289 1 5 3.88 1.097 A6 Professional brand management agency 289 1 5 3.78 1.077 A7 Marketing area and country 289 1 5 3.64 1.147 A9 Brand culture model globalization 289 1 5 3.48 1.234 From the perspective of brand management mode and identification, the average score of business characteristics in the three items is low, with an average of 3.34, indicating that consumers think that the business characteristics of international clothing brands are diverse. For products and financing, it is the lowest among the four common factors. Among them, the products that consumers prefer international clothing brands have patented technology, and there will be a beautiful package with an average value of 3.20 and 3.16. From the descriptive analysis, the contribution of each common factor to the international cognition of clothing brand and the internal mean value of each common factor are obtained. Among them, some factors are inconsistent with the results of the in-depth interviews. In the in-depth interviews, more than two-thirds of consumers believe that brand positioning and international spokespersons are necessary. But in the actual questionnaire survey, the scores of these factors are relatively low. The reasons may be: in the interview, the sample size is not large enough, and the way of questioning is different from the questionnaire, which may make consumers not understand some problems well. In addition, the objects of in-depth interview are students, and the cognition of students and white-collar workers is different, which leads to the deviation of the two results, and may have a certain impact on the follow-up research. 4.3. Structural Equation Analysis Based on the factor analysis components and the null hypothesis, a structural equation model was constructed to verify the relationship between the latent variables, and the model hypothesis was tested. The results are shown in Figure 3. Figure 3. Structural equation model The maximum likelihood estimation method is used to estimate the parameters of the hypothesis model. The absolute fitness index was 1.720, less than the critical value of 3, RMSEA value was 0.048, less than the critical value of 0.05, GFI value was 0.906, more than 0.9. The values of NFI and IFI were 0.922 and 0.966, respectively, which were higher 27 than the critical value of 0.9; The values of pgfi and pnfi were 0.709 and 0.787, respectively, which were greater than the critical value of 0.5. All the fitness indexes of the model met the model fitting standard. The regression results of the model path coefficients are shown in the following table. The standardized regression coefficients of product and financing, brand management mode and identification, brand equity and brand penetration on brand image are 0.328, 0.158, 0.143 and 0.170 respectively, and the corresponding P values are less than 0.05, indicating that brand management mode and identification, product and financing, brand penetration and brand equity have significant positive effects on brand image. The standardized regression coefficients of product and financing, brand management mode and identification, brand equity and brand penetration on quality perception are 0.105, 0.115, 0.114 and 0.223, respectively, and the corresponding P values are less than 0.05, indicating that brand management mode and identification, product and financing, brand penetration and brand equity have significant positive effects on quality perception, which verifies the hypothesis of this paper. 5. Conclusions Research shows that brand image and quality perception are two important dimensions that consumers pay more attention to and can feel well. There is a significant correlation between these two dimensions and the factors of brand internationalization. Enterprises' brand internationalization can make consumers feel brand optimization in two dimensions: brand image and quality perception. If enterprises want to improve the image of brand in consumers' eyes or make consumers think of "high quality" of the brand, they can start with the above-mentioned influencing factors, formulate targeted brand internationalization strategies, integrate "Created in China" into "Created in China", and build China's independent international famous brand. Specific methods are as follows: Strengthen production management, improve product technology, increase quality inspection efforts, and strive for perfection in details, thereby improving product quality. 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