Taking global brands’ products incorporating Chinese elements as test objects, this paper explores the effect of culture identity on purchasing likelihood in Chinese market. Empirical results show that cultural identity has a significantly positive impact on brand local icon value, which plays a completely mediating role in the effect of cultural identity on purchasing likelihood. Meanwhile, preference for authenticity positively moderates the indirect effect of cultural identity on purchasing likelihood. However, its role is mainly reflected in the second stage of the effect of cultural identity on purchasing likelihood. The theoretical significance of this paper lies in its introduction of cultural identity as an antecedent variable to explain the effectiveness of Chinese elements for the first time and the mediating role of brand local icon value. Besides, combining with related research like authenticity, this paper introduces the preference for authenticity to explain differences in the effects across market segments. The practical significance lies in that if multinationals want to leverage cultural identity of Chinese consumers to improve the competitiveness of global brands, they should place emphasis on making Chinese consumers perceive local icon value of global brands and differentiating between market segments with different preference for authenticity.