Country Images:Why They Influence Consumers

Peeter W. J. Verlegh

Chapter Chapter 5 in International Place Branding Yearbook 2010, 2010, pp 45-51 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Wines from Chile, oranges from Spain, autos from Germany and rock stars from the USA. What makes them special? This chapter examines the impact of the country of origin of products on consumers’ product evaluations. The relevance of this topic was recognized as long ago as the 1960s in one of the earliest papers on international consumer marketing (Dichter 1962), which argued that a product’s country of origin may have a “tremendous influence on the acceptance and success of products” (p. 116). A review by Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999) further supports the importance of country-of-origin effects on consumer behavior. Unlike academic relevance, the practical relevance of country of origin has not gone undisputed. Kenichi Ohmae, for example, asserted that consumers “don’t care about country of origin … [and] don’t worry about where the product was made” (Ohmae 1989, p. 144). More recently, this concern was echoed by Usunier (2006), who argued that the large amount of academic interest in country-of-origin effects does not reflect the limited relevance of this concept for consumers and companies. Usunier argues that country-of-origin research thus provides an excellent illustration of the “relevance gap” that characterizes much of today’s research on management. In this chapter, I shall discuss the background of country-of-origin effects, and demonstrate their practical relevance to the academic and business audience.

Keywords: Origin Country; Brand Personality; Country Image; Favorable Image; Place Brand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-29809-5_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230298095

DOI: 10.1057/9780230298095_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().