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Impact of Country of Origin on Consumer Product Evaluation: Beliefs & Attitudes, Study notes of Marketing

The influence of country of origin on consumer product evaluations, going beyond the use of country of origin as an informational cue to consider its impact on product beliefs and attitudes. Consumers' evaluations are based on the match between product and country, influenced by factors such as national pride, autobiographical memories, and consumer ethnocentrism. The document also discusses the effects of national identification and consumer ethnocentrism on product beliefs and attitudes towards domestic and foreign products.

What you will learn

  • How does country of origin influence consumers' beliefs and attitudes towards products?
  • How do consumers' prior experiences and country images influence their evaluations of products from different countries?
  • How does consumer ethnocentrism affect consumers' preferences for domestic and foreign products?
  • What role does national pride play in consumers' evaluations of products from specific countries?

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COUNTRY-OF-
ORIGIN EFFECTS
ON CONSUMER PRODUCT
Peeter W.J. Verlegh
E VA L U AT I O N S
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C O U N T R Y - O F -

O R I G I N E F F E C T S

O N C O N S U M E R P R O D U C T

Peeter W.J. Verlegh E VA L U AT I O N S

STELLINGEN

Behorende bij het proefschrift van Peeter W J. Verlegh

- zie literatuurlijst voor bronnen -

  1. Het oordeel van consumenten over een product wordt bei'nvloed door het land van herkomst van bet product. DU proefschrift 2. Zowel economische als sociaal-psychologische motieven dragen bij aan de neiging van consumenten om producten uit het eigen land positief te beoordelen. DU proefschrift
  2. Het oordeel van consumenten over producten uit een bepaald land wordt be'fnvloed door eerdere ervaringen met producten uit dit land, maar ook door gevoelens ten opzichte van het land en percepties van de eigenschappen van het land en haar bevolking. DU proefschrift
  3. Alleen wanneer de consument in beperkte mate aandacht besteedt aan een advertentie voor een product uit een land met een negatief imago, leiden positievere claims in de advertentie tot een positiever oordeel over het geadverteerde product. Dit proefschrift
  4. De positieve invloed van het aantal attribuutniveaus op het middels conjunct meten bepaalde belang van een attribuut is deels te verklaren uit de neiging van consumenten om interne representaties van attribuutniveaus te spreiden over het bijbehorende mentale continuum. Verlegh.Schifferstein en Wittink, 2001
  5. De intentie van de consument om kant-en-klaarmaaltijden te serveren wordt beinvloed door de mening van relevante anderen, met name wanneer zij deelnemen aan de maaltijd. Verlegh en Candel, 1999
  6. De aanwezigheid van assistenten-in-opleiding aan bedrijfskundige faculteiten laat zien dat financiele overwegingen niet altijd een doorslaggevende invloed hebben op de beroepskeuze.
  7. Het voorkomen van zowel "onnodig linksrijden" als "bumperkleven" in de lijst van de tien grootste ergernissen van Nederlandse automobilisten illustreert het nut van segmentatie in marktonderzoek.
  8. De resultaten van onderzoek naar de invloed van gemoedstoestanden op cognitie suggereren dat de vreugden van de wetenschap niet altijd ten goede komen aan de kwaliteit van wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Gebaseerd op Schwarz, 2001
  9. De gewichtstoename die meestal gepaard gaat met het stoppen met roken, kan voorkomen worden door nicotinepleisters over de mond te plakken. Geinspireerddoor "Niet-rokersfeestje" - Harrie Jekkers

COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN EFFECTS

ON CONSUMER PRODUCT EVALUATIONS

Peeter W .J. Verlegh

Promotoren: prof. dr. ir. M.T.G. Meuleaberg Hoogleraar in de marktkunde en het consumentengedrag Wageningen Universiteit

prof. dr. ir. J.E.B.M. Steenkamp CentER research professor of marketing, GfK professor of international marketing research Katholieke Universiteit Brabant

Promotiecommissie: prof. dr. F.G.M. Pieters (Katholieke Universiteit Brabant) prof. dr. ir. J.C.M. van Trijp (Wageningen Universiteit) prof. dr. L. Warlop (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgie) prof. dr. ir. B. Wierenga (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)

  • ISBN 90-5808-463-

DUTCH WORDS OF THANKS AND APPRECIATION

"Wie zaait zal oogsten", "Rome is niet op een dag gebouwd", en "Je moet Schieten, anders kun je niet scoren". Deze en andere zegswijzen hebben betrekking op de relatie tussen inspanning en opbrengsten. In essentie benadrukt elk van deze uitdrukkingen dat produkten (zoals dit proefschrift) het resultaat zijn van produktie. In het algemeen wordt de produktie buiten het aandachtsveld van de marketing geplaatst. Desalniettemin wil ik in het voorwoord van dit proefschrift de produktie centraal stellen en alle mensen bedanken die een bijdrage hebben geleverd aan dit eindprodukt. Allereerst wil ik mijn promotoren, Thieu Meulenberg en Jan-Benedict Steenkamp, bedanken voor hun toewijding en inzicht. Gedurende de afgelopen jaren ben ik mij voortdurend bewust geweest van mijn unieke en bevoorrechte positie als promovendus, begeleid door deze twee invloedrijke wetenschappers. Tegen collega's en vrienden heb ik vaak enthousiast verteld over de bevlogenheid van Jan-Benedict, het perspectief van Thieu, en de zeer grote marketing-kennis van hen beiden. Ik heb gedurende de afgelopen jaren ontzettend veel van hen geleerd en heel prettig met hen samengewerkt. De hoop dat dit de komende jaren voortgezet kan worden. Naast mijn promotoren wil ik graag de leden van mijn promotiecommissie bedanken, beginnend met Berend Wierenga, die niet alleen lid is van mijn promotiecommisie, maar tevens verantwoordelijk voor het feit dat dit proefschrift voltooid is in Rotterdam. De ben hem veel dank verschuldigd voor zijn vertrouwen en voor het feit dat hij mij de mogelijkheid heeft gegeven om de rollen van universitair docent en promovendus succesvol met elkaar te combineren. Rik Pieters ben ik heel dankbaar voor onze discussies over onderzoek naar consumentengedrag in en buiten dit proefschrift. Consumentengedrag is een fascinerend en complex onderwerp, maar "Soms grijnst het in de wölken en zie ik het verband" (Van Dik Hout's Martin Buitenhuis). Na voltooiing van het proefschrift volgden er commentaren van Hans van Trijp en Luk Warlop, die bijdragen aan toekomstige publicaties over dit onderzoek. Naast promotoren en commisieleden heeft een aantal mensen een belangrijke ondersteunende rol gespeeld bij de totstandkoming van dit proefschrift. De directie Industrie en Handel van het minsiterie van LNV heeft samen met de afdeling marktonderzoek van het Productschap Tuinbouw het onderzoek dat beschreven staat in hoofdstuk vier financieel ondersteund. Rob Ramakers van het Productschap Tuinbouw wil ik graag persoonlijk bedanken voor zijn inzet en interesse. Hoofdstuk vier had niet geschreven kunnen worden zonder Jaap Bijkerk, die verantwoordelijk was voor het

I

tijdens congressen van organisaties die zieh verschuilen achter acronymen als ACR, ASPO, EMAC, SCP en INFORMS. De belangrijkste mensen in mijn leven heb ik tot het laatst bewaard. Mijn meissie Maria ben ik heel dankbaar voor de hulp en het grote vertrouwen. Het leven met een promovendus vraagt veel energie, begrip, tijd, geduld en liefde. Ik vind het geweldig dat zij dit alles en meer al die tijd heeft willen geven. Dankjewel. Naast Maria wil ik graag de gehele familie Kooijman, Marisol en Geert bedanken voor hun voortdurende belangstelling. Mijn vader en mijn zusje Hetty wil ik bedanken voor hun steun en interesse in de afgelopen jaren. Ik hoop dat jullie trots zijn op dit boek, dat er zonder jullie nooit was geweest. Tot slot wil ik mijn moeder bedanken, voor alles wat ze voor me gedaan heeft. Met veel liefde draag ik dit proefschrift aan haar op.

m

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Chapter 2: Review and meta-analysis of country-of-origin research, and a 7 framework for analyzing the antecedents of country-of-origin effects

Chapter 3 : Home country bias in the evaluation of domestic and foreign products: 31 the role of national identification

Chapter 4: Country images and prior experience as antecedents of country-of- 47 origin effects

Chapter 5: Country-of-origin in advertising: source and information roles 93

Chapter 6: General discussion 117

References 122

Nederlandse samenvatting 133

Curriculum Vitae 136

rv

"Made in" labels are found on most products. But these labels are not the only cues that consumers may use to infer the country or origin (or "nationality") of products. As illustrated by the examples in table 1.1, marketing instruments like advertising and branding may be used to implicitly or explicitly link a product to a (origin) country. Such links do not necessarily represent the "truth", i.e., they may link a product to a country other than the place of manufacture or design. For example, despite of sounding American or British, "Kenwood" is a Japanese make of consumer electronics, and the British flag on Reebok shoes has got no connection to the brand's country of origin (US) or to the shoes' country of manufacture (mostly Asian countries). Leclerc, Schmitt and Dub6 (1994) have coined the term "foreign branding" to refer to such practices.

Table 1.1: Examples of references to country of origin

Marketing Instrument Type of Reference

Advertising Explicit:

  • Absolut: "Vodka from the country of Sweden"
  • Siemens: "from Germany with love"

Implicit (through the use of language or visuals):

  • BMW: "Freude am Fahren" (in US and Europe)
  • Audi: "Vorsprung durch Technik" (in UK)
  • Milka chocolate: use of alpine scenery

Branding / Labeling Explicit

  • Cafö de Colombia
  • American Express
  • Swissair / British Airways / Air France
  • Clearly Canadian

Implicit (linguistic references or the use of flags/symbols)

  • Kenwood vs. Mitshubishi (both Japanese)
  • Boursin: French-sounding (Unilever)
  • Buitoni, Raguletto: Italian-sounding (Nestle\ Unilever)
  • Ikea: (".. .of Sweden"): blue and yellow as corporate colors

Although consumers may not know where a specific product is manufactured, they often link a specific nationality to brands and companies: Nike is American, Gucci and Ferrari are Italian, Sony and Mitsubishi are Japanese, and Volkswagen is German. Like other "brand demographics" such as age, and social class, country of origin is an antecedent of brand personality (Aaker 1997), or in the words of Papadopoulos and Heslop (1993, p xxii) "[Country of origin] is to a product what occupation is to a new acquaintance we make at a party: we sort of have to ask about it (if it has not already been offered) to put our new friend into context [and] to make a value judgment". The idea that consumers associate (well-known) brands with a particular country of origin was examined informally in a survey among 77 students taking an introductory course in consumer behavior at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. The respondents were asked to fill out a one-page questionnaire that contained a list of brand names. For each of these brands, respondents were asked to write down the country with which they thought the brand was associated most strongly. The brands were taken from a ranking of 75 "billion dollar brands", which are considered to be the most valuable brand names worldwide. This ranking is based on research carried out by the Interbrand group and Citibank (Financial Times 2000). From this list the fifteen highest ranked brand names were selected, applying the restriction that a maximum of two brands could originate from the same country (as listed in the ranking). This resulted in the list in table 1.2, which shows a large degree of consensus in the countries that respondents associated with each of the brands. For each of the brands, the country that was mentioned most often was equal to the actual country of origin (as listed in the Financial Times ranking). Brands were associated with 1 to 13 different countries (mean = 4.2 , median = 3). The lowest degree of consensus was found for Nescafe, which was associated with 13 different countries. But even for this brand, the top three countries accounted for 73% of the responses. For the other brands, the top three associated countries accounted for more than 90% of responses. For ten brands, we found that a single country accounted for more than 90% of responses, and we obtained 100% consensus for four of these brands (Microsoft, Mercedes, Heineken, and Philips).

determine the magnitude of country-of-origin effects, and to examine how this magnitude is moderated by study characteristics. Most of the earlier country-of-origin research has focused on effect sizes, although there have also been a number of studies that examine the cognitive processes through which country of origin affects consumer product evaluations. Both streams of research essentially focus on the consequences of linking a product with a certain country of origin. Unlike these studies, this dissertation is focused primarily on the antecedents of the country-of-origin effects. This dissertation addresses the question why country of origin has such a strong effect on consumers' product evaluations, and shows how country-of-origin effects can be linked to a number of different sources, that each have their own influence on consumer product evaluations. This dissertation is structured as follows. Following the review and meta-analysis in chapter two, chapters three and four examine antecedents of consumers' general images of products from a specific country of origin. We hereby assume that these images differ between product-categories. Chapter five studies how these images affect consumers' product evaluations. Each of these chapters provides a theoretical framework that is translated into a set of hypotheses that are empirically tested. Chapter six concludes this thesis, and provides a general discussion and suggestions for future research.

2.2. The role of country of origin in consumer product evaluation

Country-of-origin research has mainly studied the use of country of origin as a cognitive cue, viz., an informational stimulus about or relating to a product, which is used by consumers to infer beliefs regarding product attributes such as quality (Bilkey and Nes 1982, Steenkamp 1990). Since country of origin can be manipulated without changing the physical product, it is regarded as an extrinsic cue (Olson 1972). In this respect, country of origin is not different from other extrinsic cues like price, brand name and retailer reputation. A large number of studies has shown that such cues act as "signals" for product quality (e.g., Steenkamp 1990, Dawar and Parker 1994). The typical design of such studies is to describe a product on a number of attributes or cues, and assess the impact of country of origin and the other cues on the overall evaluation of the product. Various studies however, have shown that country of origin is not merely another cognitive cue. Wyer and colleagues (Hong and Wyer 1989, 1990, Li and Wyer 1994) showed that the impact of country of origin cannot be explained entirely by a quality signaling process. In addition to its role as a quality cue, country of origin has symbolic and emotional meaning to consumers. Country of origin may associate a product with status, authenticity and exoticness (Li and Monroe 1992, Batra et al. 2000). Moreover, it links a product to a rich product-country imagery, with sensory, affective and ritual connotations (Askegaard and Ger 1998). Fournier (1998) found that country of origin relates a product to national identity, which can result in a strong emotional attachment to certain brands and products. She describes the case of a second-generation Italian- American woman who is strongly attached to Italian products, especially food-related items. For this person, "Italy" has very strong emotional and symbolic connotations. Botschen and Hemetsberger (1998) reported that consumers link country of origin not only to product quality, but also to feelings of national pride and memories of past vacations. These studies indicate that country of origin is not merely a cognitive cue for product quality, but also relates to emotions, identity, pride and autobiographical memories. Such symbolic and emotional connotations transform country of origin into an "expressive" or "image" attribute (cf, Lefkoff-Hagius and Mason 1993). Such attributes have been shown to be significant determinants of consumer preferences and an important source of brand equity (Lefkoff-Hagius and Mason 1993). Obermiller and Spangenberg (1989) developed a framework that will be used to structure our discussion of the various ways in which country of origin influences consumer product evaluations. The framework distinguishes between cognitive,

affective and normative processing of the country-of-origin cue. It should be noted that the boundaries between these processes are fuzzy, and cognitive, affective and normative processes are interacting in consumer decision making (Isen 1984). Nevertheless, this framework is broadly consistent with the majority of the country-of- origin literature, and best structures our review of current knowledge on country-of- origin effects. Below, we will first discuss cognitive, affective and normative aspects of country-of-origin effects separately. Next, we elaborate on interactions of cognitive, affective and normative aspects of country of origin. Table 2.1 provides examples of cognitive, affective and normative mechanisms for country-of-origin effects.

Table 2.1: Mechanisms for country-of-origin effects

Mechanism Description Major findings

Cognitive Country of origin is a cue for product quality

Country of origin is used as signal for overall product quality and quality attributes, such as durability.

Affective (^) Country of origin has symbolic and emotional value to consumers

Country of origin is an image attribute that links the product to symbolic and emotional benefits, such as status and national pride.

Normative Consumers hold social and personal norms related to country of origin

Purchasing domestic products may be seen as appropriate because it supports domestic economy. By the same token, consumers may refrain from buying goods from countries with objectionable policies and regimes.

2.2.1. Cognitive aspects of the country-of-origin effect Information processing models of consumer decision making generally assume that judgments of product quality are inferred from cues (Steenkamp 1990, Dawar and Parker 1994). Provided that basic criteria for cue selection, like vividness, clarity, and intensity are met, the use of a cue is determined by consumers' perception of its predictive value. The latter refers to the perceived strength of the relationship between a cue and the attribute that is to be judged (Olson 1972, Steenkamp 1990). The predictive value of a cue is affected by 1) the "ecological" or "observed" covariation between cue