As sport league brands have increasingly extended their marketing activities into foreign countries, international brand positioning has become a relevant research topic. In this research, we introduce and examine the concept of bicultural brand positioning, an approach that combines a sport league’s connection to its home country with target-country associations. We integrate bicultural identity theory with the literature on brand benefits to propose two types of bicultural brand positioning: functional versus symbolic. Three experiments, using the National Football League and German satellite fans as the empirical context, provide evidence that bicultural brand positioning incorporating functional (vs. symbolic) benefits for the satellite fans increases bicultural brand image integration, defined as the perceived compatibility of combining the two country cultures, and has positive indirect effects on intentions to use the brand and positive word of mouth. These effects are driven by increased perceptions of cultural authenticity of the brand and brand convenience.

随着体育联盟品牌越来越多地将营销活动延伸到国外，国际品牌定位已成为相关的研究课题。在这项研究中，我们介绍并研究了双文化品牌定位的概念，这是一种将体育联盟与其母国的联系与目标国协会结合起来的方法。我们将双文化身份理论与品牌效益文献相结合，提出两种类型的双文化品牌定位：功能性与象征性。以国家橄榄球联盟和德国卫星球迷为实证背景的三项实验提供了证据，证明双文化品牌定位结合了卫星球迷的功能性（与象征性）利益，增加了双文化品牌形象整合，定义为将两者结合起来的感知兼容性国家文化，并对使用品牌的意图和积极的口碑产生积极的间接影响。这些影响是由人们对品牌文化真实性和品牌便利性的认知增强所驱动的。