Abstract: Transnational place brands often find it difficult to enter the minds of consumers in the host country (e.g., trust and acceptance) due to trade barriers and cultural distance. Based on the perspective of cognitive legitimacy, this paper proposes and tests a predictive model and situational conditions that place cultural confidence strategies (inheritance internalization and innovation diffusion) affect trust and acceptance of place brands by consumers in the host country. Empirical results from 932 valid sample respondents who have purchased foreign place brands show that transnational place brands can promote trust and acceptance of consumers in the host country by implementing inheritance internalization strategy and innovation diffusion strategy. Among them, the implementation of inheritance internalization strategy through continuing to share, advocating and maintaining, and edifying internalization, and the implementation of innovation diffusion strategy through organizational learning, culture creating, and trend leading, can promote trust and acceptance of place brand by consumers in the host country. Compared with the innovation diffusion strategy, the inheritance internalization strategy of place culture has a stronger impact on place brand trust. In addition, the matching between brand product type and regional economic pattern, and place cultural distance(magnitude and direction) have different moderating effects on the influence of place cultural confidence strategies on the place brand trust of consumers in host country. These research conclusions may provide some managerial implications for transnational place brands to develop internationalization strategies based on cultural confidence.

Key words: cultural confidence, place brand, brand trust, brand acceptance, cognitive legitimacy