The Country-of-Origin Effect and Brand Origin Knowledge: How Little

Consumers Know and How Important Knowledge Is

Terence A. Shimp, U. of SC

Saeed Samiee, U. of Tulsa

Subhash Sharma, U. of SC

Research Evolution• Research in the C-of-O area has been

ongoing for over a quarter century.• Main-effect orientation has given away to

search for M&Ms, as usual.• Little generalizable knowledge has been

forthcoming.• It has been assumed that consumers are

knowledgeable of brand origins.

Our Point of Departure• Research has revealed that country

stereotypes do influence brand judgments.• However … consumers have been

presented with CO information in a rather heavy-handed fashion.

• Hence, the CO effect is inflated (cf. Peterson and Jolibert’s 1995 meta-analysis), and ecological validity is compromised.

Brand Origin Knowledge (BOK)

• Researchers have generally assumed that consumers are knowledgeable of brand origins.

• Our research objective: Measure BOK, test this assumption, and ‘model’ antecedent variables that might account for BOK variability.

Measuring BOK: Guiding Factors

1. Include a reasonable representation of brands both from US and other countries.

2. Exclude names that are obvious to origin.

3. Include brands spanning product categories, price levels, and gender interest.

4. Push the envelope with inclusion of foreign-sounding US brands and Anglicized foreign brands.

Selecting Brand Names

• Original pool of 144 brands.

• Reduced to 84 through systematic and rigorous procedure.

• Final sample consists of 40 US brands and 44 brands from 8 other countries: England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

BOK “Scoring”• BOK scores range from 0-84, or as a

proportion, from 0-1.

• We decompose scores into US-BOK andF-BOK

• Scores are analogous to a measure of spelling ability.

Predicting Variability in BOK• Our initial assumption is that the same set

of predictors will not perform equally well in predicting variability in US- and F-BOK.

• Predictor variables: (1) SES characteristics, (2) international experience, (3) age and gender, and (4) ethnocentric tendencies.

Hypotheses

H1: Higher SES should lead to both greater US- and F-BOK scores.

H2: Greater international experience should produce higher F- but not US-

BOK.

Hypotheses

H3: Age is related inversely to levels of both US- and F-BOK.

H4: Females will demonstrate higher levels of both US- and F-BOK.

Hypotheses

H5: Consumer ethnocentric tendencies are related inversely to the level of F-

BOK but not to the level of US-BOK.

MethodSample

1. Selected random sample of 5000 households from all 50 states.

2. Obtained 480 usable responses (12% response rate after 20% adjustment).

MethodPredictor Measures

1. SES – Indicated by education and income.2. Age – Census Bureau categories.3. International experience – Indicated by # of

countries visited and # of foreign languages with proficiency.

4. CETSCALE – 17-item measure.

MethodBOK Measure

• Matrix of 84 brands, as rows, and eight countries, as columns, along with DK and NL options.

ResultsBrand Origin Knowledge

US-BOK: M = .49; s.d. = .22

F-BOK: M = .22; s.d. = .14

Results: Country-by-CountryBrands Brands Associated WithFrom ENG FRA GER HKa ITA JAP SWI US NL DK

England 14.5b 0.9 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.3 59.9 0.0 24.0France 2.0c 36.0 1.1 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 19.7 0.1 39.3Germany 3.4 1.7 19.5 1.0 1.1 1.7 2.0 27.8 1.0 40.9Italy 4.2 2.5 1.3 0.2 20.7 1.9 3.7 8.1 1.2 56.2Japan 0.8 0.3 1.4 1.9 0.4 48.5 1.5 18.6 0.1 26.5Switzerland 2.9 10.8 1.9 0.5 1.6 3.2 16.8 14.0 0.3 48.0U.S. 2.0 6.2 0.7 1.1 1.9 2.3 0.7 56.7 0.6 28.0 

aThere were no brands from Hong KongbIndicates that 14.5% of the respondents correctly associated English brands as English brands.cIndicates that 2% of the respondents incorrectly associated French brands as English brands.

 

 

US-BOK Structural Model Results

BOK BOKIE

SES

Age

Gender

LanguageFamiliarity

CountriesVisited

Gender

Age

Education

Income

CETCET

.558 (3.63)

-.011 (-0.16)

-.043 (-0.44)

.418 (3.36)

-.036 (-0

.65)

.138 (2.38)

F-BOK Structural Model Results

BOK BOKIE

SES

Age

Gender

LanguageFamiliarity

CountriesVisited

Gender

Age

Education

Income

CETCET

.576 (4.77)

-.093 (-1.60)

.292 (3.10)

.419 (3.73)

-.011 (-0.24)

-.118 (-2.40)

Language StudyAlternative Explanation – BOK simply reflects

respondents’ sensitivity to surface-level language characteristics and their tendency to assign brand names to countries on that basis.

Study Purpose – To determine whether BOK scores are a direct function of the language that brand names appear to represent.

Language StudyMethod• 51 students completed two

questionnaires separated by one week.

• First, a language-association measure.

• Second, a BOK measure as in national study.

Language Study Method• The BOK measure was identical to that

used in the full, national sample.

• The language-association measure included all 40 US brands but only 31 of the foreign brands (7 brands from Switzerland removed as were a combined 6 brands from Korea and the Netherlands).

Language Study Method

The following pages include a list of brand names that represent products of companies based in various countries. Your task is to assign each brand to the language that the name is closely associated with by its semantic character. For example, many consumers immediately recognize the automobile name "Mitsubishi" as a Japanese word and the detergent name "Tide" as an English word. Thus, for each brand name we ask you to circle the specific language that first comes to your mind. Use the "Don't Know" option when you have no language association for a particular name.

Language Study Results• Overall level of BOK in student sample

virtually identical, at ~ 35%, to the national sample’s level.

• However, whereas the student sample’s levels of US- and F-BOK were virtually identical at 35%, the national sample had higher US-BOK (49%) but lower F-BOK (22%).

Language Study Results

Association of Brand Names with Languages Brands Percent of Brands Associated with a Specific Language from English French German Italian Japanese Other England (2)a 84.7 5.1 6.8 0.8 0.0 2.5 France (7) 12.6 54.0 17.4 5.8 0.5 9.7 Germany (10) 27.1 12.7 31.0 5.8 3.9 19.5 Italy (4) 13.1 15.3 8.5 44.9 2.5 15.6 Japan (8) 31.8 3.0 4.9 1.3 45.3 13.7 US (40) 43.0 22.7 7.5 6.4 5.2 15.1 a Number of brands from each country.

Language Study ResultsWeighted-Average Language Scores

• Based on all 71 brands in the language study (previous slide), the weighted-

average score is .44.

• Based only on the 31 non-US brands, the

weighted- average score is .45.

Language Study Results

Weighted Average BOK Scores

Brands from Percent England 28.0a France 49.2 Germany 27.5 Italy 40.7 Japan 46.6 US 32.5

Weighted-average BOK score with US brands = .35 Weighted-average BOK score without US brands = .39

Implications• In view of the language-study results, mere

guessing of brand origins based on language features should have led to a higher percentage of BOK than what was observed in the national sample.

Implications• This implies, in turn, that knowledge of

brand origins, exclusive of the heuristical value of surface language features, is minimal indeed.

Implications• This further implies that a brand’s origin—

even if a brand is from a country with positive equity—may not represent a type of brand association that is judgment- or purchase-consequential.

• (A brand association is meaningful only to the extent that the association is held somewhat strongly and is accessible!)

Implications• Although the literature reports consumer

bias towards origins of products, the studies have been heavy-handed in providing research subjects with little differentiating information other than a brand’s origin.

• Under natural, ecologically valid circumstances, it is doubtful that strong

C-of-O effects would obtain.

Implications• The structural model did a much better job

in explaining F- versus US-BOK.

(1) Greater variability in F-BOK.

(2) Two additional predictor variables in F-BOK model (international experience and CET) versus US-BOK model.

Implications• American consumers tend to regard non-

domestic brands as being of US origin (e.g., 20% of French brands and 28% of German brands were considered of US origin).

• This ‘confusion effect’ appears most likely when foreign brands have a continuous distribution and promotion presence and hence become domestic in consumers’ minds.

Implications• Brands associated with countries that have

positive images should aggressively communicate country-of-origin information (cf. Gurhan-Canli and Maheswaran 2000).

• Brands associated with negative country images should conceal the CO or do everything ethically and legally possible to appear domestic.

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