Abstract: In order to win the favor of local consumers, more and more global brands begin to use local cultural elements in product design or marketing process. When such global brands make mistakes, will consumers ( due to their love for these brands) think the brands are excusable, or will consumers blame the brands and think they are worse? From the perspective of brand mistakes, this study explores the influence of culture mixing on consumers’willingness to forgive, and deeply analyzes its mediating mechanism and possible boundary conditions. Through two experimental studies, it is found that consumers are more likely to forgive cultural mixed global brands than non-cultural mixed global brands, because the application of local cultural elements will narrow the psychological distance between global brands and consumers, and thus trigger their in-group brand preference. However, this effect only exists when the global brand makes competence mistakes. However, when the brand makes moral mistakes, because consumers have higher moral requirements for those who are psychologically close, therefore, compared with non-cultural mixed global brands, consumers are more difficult to forgive cultural mixed brands. This study is the first to explore the impact of culture mixing on consumers, willingness to forgive from the perspective of brand mistakes, which provides a new perspective and direction for culture mixing research, thus further enriching and expanding existing studies on culture mixing. At the same time, this study also provides important guidances and suggestions for corporate’s cultural mixing design and brand crisis management.

Key words: cultural mixing, global brand, brand mistake, forgiveness, psychological distance