Country-of-Origin Effects And Global Brand Trust
COO is a well-researched global marketing topic. In mid-1997, Heslop, Papadopoulos, and Bourke (1998) Heslop, L., Papadopoulos, N. and Bourke, M. 1998. An interrogation and intercultural perspective on subculture differences in product evaluations. 300 COO-related studies. By the time Pharr (2005) Pharr, J. 2005. Synthesizing country-of-origin research from the last decade: Is the concept still salient in an era of global brands? COO literature had increased to well over 700 studies. Hsieh (2004) Hsieh, M. 2004. An investigation of country-of-origin effect using correspondence analysis: A cross-national context. COO 鈥渄efinitions can be classified into three groups: overall country image, aggregate product-country image, and specific product-country image鈥?(p. 鈥渙verall country image鈥?relates to the stereotypes and generalized attitudes individuals have about a specific country. Russia's overall country image, for example, might be thought of as a Communist, repressive, poor, backward, and monotone country. In contrast, 鈥渁ggregate product-country image鈥?and 鈥渟pecific product-country image鈥?refer to the COO attitudes individuals hold at the level of product category and individual brand level, respectively. Aggregate product-country image is tapped when individuals evaluate 鈥渢he made in鈥?label, such as computers made in Malaysia.
Specific product-country image is evoked when consumers evaluate a brand, such as a Porsche Cayenne made in Slovakia. More recently, Pappu, Quester, and Cooksey (2006) Pappu, R., Quester, P. and Cooksey, R. 2006. Country image and consumer-based brand equity: relationships and implications for international marketing. Hseih's framework into just macro and micro country image. Pharr (2005) Pharr, J. 2005. Synthesizing country-of-origin research from the last decade: Is the concept still salient in an era of global brands? Lee, Yun, & Lee, 2005 Lee, W., Yun, T. and Lee, B. 2005. The role of involvement in country-of-origin effects on product evaluation situational and enduring involvement. Speece & Nguyen, 2005 Speece, M. and Nguyen, D. 2005. Countering negative country-of-origin with low prices: A conjoint study in Vietnam. Additionally, scholars have tried to understand how COO effects perceived product value (Cervino, Sanchez, & Cubillo, 2005 Cervino, J., Sanchez, J. and Cubillo, J. 2005. Made in effect, competitive marketing strategy and brand performance: An empirical analysis for Spanish brands. Hui & Zhou, 2002 Hui, M. and Zhou, L. 2002. Linking product evaluations and purchase intention for country-of-origin effects.
Lin & Kao, 2004 Lin, C. and Kao, D. 2004. The impacts of country-of-origin on brand equity. Consumer ethnocentrism can act as a mediating variable in any COO evaluation. Following the definition first used by Shimp and Sharma (1987) Shimp, T. A. and Sharma, S. 1987. Consumer ethnocentrism: Construction and validation of the CETSCALE. 鈥渢he appropriateness, indeed morality, of purchasing foreign products鈥?(p. Consumer ethnocentrism is a systematic preference favoring purchase of domestic over foreign products. Consumer ethnocentrism is more contemporaneously termed 鈥渄omestic country bias鈥?(Balabanis & Diamantopoulos, 2004 Balabanis, G. and Diamantopoulos, A. 2004. Domestic country bias, country-of-origin effects, and consumer ethnocentrism: A multidimensional approach. Empirical research has identified differences in domestic country bias between consumers living in developed versus developing countries (Batra, Ramaswamy, Alden, Steenkamp, & Ramachander, 2000 Batra, R., Ramaswamy, V., Alden, D. L., Steenkamp, J.-B. E. M. and Ramachander, S. 2000. Effects of brand local and nonlocal origins on consumer attitudes in developing countries.
Upadhyay & Singh, 2006 Upadhyay, Y. and Singh, S. 2006. Preference for domestic goods: A study of consumer ethnocentrism. The former clearly favored domestic over foreign products, while the latter favored the opposite. Research by Bawa (2004) Bawa, A. 2004. Consumer ethnocentrism: CETSCALE validation and measurement of extent. 鈥渢he label 鈥榤ade in India鈥?is not a liability. The Indian consumers will not lap up foreign goods merely because of their 鈥榤ade in鈥?tags鈥?(p. Pharr, J. 2005. Synthesizing country-of-origin research from the last decade: Is the concept still salient in an era of global brands?. COO model that integrated most of the antecedent, moderating, and outcome variables outlined above. Usunier & Cestre, 2007 Usunier, J.-C. Cestre, G. 2007. Product ethnicity: Revisiting the match between products and countries. Recently, another stream of research has explored the accuracy of consumer COO attribution. Samiee, Shimp, and Sharma (2005) Samiee, S., Shimp, T. and Sharma, S. 2005. Brand origin recognition accuracy: Its antecedents and consumers' cognitive limitations. COO, and (b) respondents inferred COO by associating the brand name with a language thought to be representative of a specific country. They postulated a new construct called 鈥渂rand origin recognition accuracy.鈥?Anderson Analytics (2007) Anderson Analytics. Samiee, Shimp, and Sharma's findings. Their research used a representative sample of 1,000 college and university students enrolled in 375 different United States institutions and found that students often inaccurately identified the COO for well-known brands. COO remains a complex construct. It is not possible to choose one set of variables over another to develop a uniform perspective. Research that has begun to explore consumer accuracy in their COO perceptions may well be a key pivot point. For the marketing pragmatist, a consumer perception of where a product or service is thought to be from is what matters. Strategy evolves from that data point.