https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fbm.1993.9.pdf

‘Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name’

Investigates the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and consumer attitudes toward foreign manufactured products in product categories in which domestic alternatives are not available. Such decision situations (i.e. product choice in categories with no domestic alternative) are common for consumers in many smaller countries throughout Europe, and thus important for marketing managers to understand. It was hypothesised that individuals with high levels of consumer ethnocentrism would have more favourable attitudes toward products from culturally similar countries in comparison to products from culturally dissimilar countries. The values classification of culture proposed by Schwartz was used to establish cultural similarity, and the attitudes of a representative sample of New Zealand consumers were assessed using a nation‐wide mail survey. Our results suggest that cultural similarity is an important consideration for highly ethnocentric consumers in the evaluation of foreign products. A number of theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Consumer ethnocentrism and attitudes toward domestic and foreign products

http://docs.business.auckland.ac.nz/Doc/JBR-Special-Issue-2009-article-Anti-consumption-and-brand-Avoidance.pdf

Anti-consumption and brand avoidance

Previous studies conducted in developed countries have demonstrated that ethnocentric consumers are more willing to buy domestic products. This study investigates the moderating roles of quality judgment of domestic products and conspicuous consumption (CC) in the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and willingness to buy domestic products (WBD) in the context of a developing country, namely the People's Republic of China. The results support the hypothesis that the impact of ethnocentrism on consumer WBD tends to be weaker when consumers judge them as being of lower quality, or when consumers hold higher CC values. The conceptual and managerial implications for developing countries, including China, are discussed.

Consumer ethnocentrism and willingness to buy domestic products in a developing country setting: testing moderating effects

Country of origin has been identified in the literature as an important cue that might be used by global marketers to influence consumers’ valuation of the brand. Its effect on consumer perceptions, affect and behavioral intentions has been widely documented, based on consumer surveys and laboratory experiments. Despite this empirical evidence, we argue that country of origin is only one extrinsic cue among many extrinsic and intrinsic cues available to the consumer in a real purchase situation. Furthermore, in real life, consumers are likely to engage in some level of information search, which would further dilute the country of origin effect in the marketplace. Based on these arguments, we conclude that country of origin might not necessarily lead to a competitive dis.advantage in terms of a price premium or discount. For a sample of products, we show that the objective product quality varies significantly by country of origin, and that these differences are consistent with extant research on country of origin effects on consumers’ perceptions. After controlling for quality differences across brands, we demonstrate that marketers from different countries charge prices that are justified by differences in product quality. Price premiums or discounts are therefore explained by differences in product quality rather than the image effect produced by the country of origin cue.

Country of Origin: A Competitive Advantage?

Consumer attitudes to local and foreign products and the likely “country-of-origin” effect in “Buy Local” and “Made In …” campaigns are surveyed. First, the importance of country of origin in relat...

Consumer Perception of Product Quality and the Country-of-Origin Effect1:

Universally, governments promote the purchase of locally made products via a variety of ‘buy local’ campaigns The common expectation is that the country-of-origin effect will work systematically to bias purchase preference in favour of locally-made products Promotional activity employing appeals based on country-of-origin, and the practice of labelling products with the country of origin are premised on this expectation A survey of 401 Australian consumers about their evaluations of an ‘Australian Made’ campaign showed high levels of campaign awareness and of its specific appeals, together with attitudes highly favourable to both the underlying concept and the operation of the campaign These attitudes were widely held by respondents Moreover, awareness and favourable attitudes towards the campaign were found to be associated with purchase predispositions, suggesting potential for behavioural change as an outcome of such campaigns

Ross C. Cameron

Papers

Consumer Perception of Product Quality and the Country-of-Origin Effect1:

The ‘Country-of-Origin Effect’ and Consumer Attitudes to ‘Buy Local’ Campaigns: Australian Evidence

An Empirical Investigation of Consumer Ethnocentrism in Australia