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Purpose – Extensive research in the area of consumer behavior has documented the “Country of Origin Effect,” which identifies country of origin as an important decision variable in evaluating products and services. Past research has mostly assumed that country of origin effect is driven by the performance of the products originating in that country. However, consumers can also form opinions about countries based on exposure to information that is unrelated to the product and may have roots in macro factors such as history, culture, and politics. These emotions, while extraneous to the product, can also influence product evaluations along with performance-related country information.Design/methodology/approach – This review examines research addressing both performance and emotional perceptions related to country of origin.Findings – This review presents an integrating framework termed “Nation Equity” to systematically understand and examine the influence of various dimensions of country of origin on consumer decision making.

This paper reviews recent developments in marketing-related sustainable business practices (SBP) that macromarketing scholars have researched and debated for four decades. Such SBPs should be regarded as positive steps toward a future where business does more good than harm in society.

Using the approach of a literature review, this paper highlights the actions of entrepreneurs and firms to implement SBPs resulting from analysis of the interplay between markets, marketing and society. Such analysis is in the tradition of macromarketing scholarship.

The study identifies important developments about an important shift toward adopting SBPs among many firms, as well as among consumers − especially, in developed countries of the world.

The study suggests that taking a macromarketing view offers scholars a broad lens on current complex marketplace phenomena that will prove effective in better understanding sustainability issues.

The results of the study underline the value of macromarketing scholarship through the last four decades. By being daring enough to consider other stakeholders other than marketers and owners of firms, macromarketers have provided scholars a more holistic understanding of business’ role in society.

Today, enlightened practitioners who utilize knowledge from macromarketing scholarship can gain a competitive advantage as they navigate markets increasingly influenced by a wider set of stakeholders. Such influential stakeholders include partner firms, employees, society and local communities, NGOs, media, government, as well as the environment and future generations. Scholars can gain perspective on the phenomena they investigate with such a macromarketing lens.

The purpose of this study is to provide a nuanced understanding of the marketing placebo effect (MPE) of products with reduced sugar labeling and how it forms certain perceptual underpins (perceived healthiness (PH) and perceived tastiness (PT)), with the potential effect of product category and social class in consideration.

The proposed model is tested using a sample of 822 participants by employing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Hypothetical relationships among MPE, PH, PT, purchase intention (PI) and social class are examined for both hedonic and utilitarian products.

The results highlight the positive role of MPE in leveraging consumer PI through the parallel mediation of PH and PT. The positive effect of MPE on PH and PT was more pronounced for the utilitarian product. In addition, social class negatively moderated the relationship between PH and PI only in the case of the utilitarian product.

This paper contributed to the MPE literature in the food industry by challenging the conventional intuition of “Unhealthy = Tasty” and highlighting the potential of perceived food healthiness to positively influence perceived food tastiness under the effect of MPE. An upper social class would attenuate the positive effect of perceived food healthiness on PI.

The chapter investigates factors shaping convenience orientation in the 21st century as well as present-day barriers to the consumption of food and non-food convenience products.

A qualitative research approach with two kinds of data triangulation is used. Multiple key informants (marketing managers and consumers) allow a consideration from different angles and multiple methodologies (in-depth and focus group interviews) help to gain deeper insights into the topic.

Convenience orientation comprises dimensions that were previously not considered in marketing research. In addition to the known factors time and effort saving, consumers buy convenience products because of the flexibility they provide. Moreover, concerns for health, environment, and quality are important barriers that prevent consumers from buying and consuming convenience products.

Our results suggest that factors increasing and decreasing convenience consumption depend at least partly on the product category. Future research should integrate various other product groups to further explore domain-specific convenience orientation.

The conceptualization of convenience orientation offers important implications for new product development as well as for the design of the marketing mix. For instance, existing barriers could be overcome by improving transparency or meeting environmental concerns.

The chapter reveals the factors shaping the consumption of convenience products. The presented findings are important to academics researching convenience consumption and practitioners producing and distributing convenience products.

This paper aims to examine the optimal sourcing strategies and pricing decisions of competing toy manufacturers and to discuss how manufacturers’ decisions are impacted by competition.

The authors consider a single-period model to characterise the competition between two competing toy manufacturers. Both of them are free to choose between virgin material and recycled material. The authors consider two types of consumers: sensitive consumers who are concerned about product safety and prefer the toy made of virgin material and insensitive consumers who do not care what material is used in the toy. The competing manufacturers play a Cournot competition.

The results reveal a special case of a win-win situation for both the manufacturer and the consumer. In addition, an increasing number of sensitive consumers does not always raise the price of virgin-material toys.

The authors derive the manufacturer’s equilibrium sourcing strategies, corresponding market-clearing prices and profits obtained.

The paper investigates how toy manufacturers’ optimal sourcing strategies are impacted by competition, considering market segments.

The effects of country-of-origin (COO) cues on product evaluations are well documented. However, research on the relative effects of COO compared to other geographical indicators, such as region-of-origin (ROO), on food purchases is still limited. This study investigates how geographical origin labels influence consumers' perceptions of product value and authenticity of foreign food, as well as subsequent purchase intention (PI) and willingness to pay premium prices (WTPPP). The moderating role of health consciousness on these relationships is also examined due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

This study uses a between-subjects experimental design conducted with 300 middle- and high-income Chinese consumers aged between 25 and 50 years. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling.

Whilst under both COO and ROO cues, all five product values positively influenced consumers' WTPPP, only functional, economic and novelty values influenced PI. The ROO cue performed significantly better than the COO cue in eliciting functional, economic and novelty value perceptions, which triggered stronger PI and willingness to pay a premium price. These relationships were mediated by product authenticity (PA) and moderated by consumers' health consciousness (HC).

Because food labels provide salient product information that facilitates consumers' evaluation of products, marketers should assess which product value perceptions they wish to enhance and then choose the appropriate geographical indicators for their labelling strategies.

This study identifies the effects of COO and ROO cues on product values, authenticity, PI and WTPPP. It also provides valuable insights into the role of HC on consumers' purchase decisions, which also aids in understanding the impact of global crises on food purchases.

This study aims to draw on cue utilization and irradiation theories to: determine the extent to which country-of-origin image and its sub-dimensions exert an aggregate and relative influence on consumer brand evaluations; and identify the contextual and methodological factors that account for between-study variance in the focal relationship.

A random-effects model was used to examine 166 empirical articles encompassing 499,563 observations, and 282 effect sizes from 1984 to 2020 using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software.

Results show that country-of-origin image has a positive, moderate effect on consumer brand evaluations. Moreover, findings reveal that each dimension of country-of-origin image – general country image, general product country image, specific product country image and partitioned country image – significantly influences consumer brand evaluation, but the effect of general product country image is the largest. What’s more, the aggregate impacts of country-of-origin image on consumer brand evaluation – brand commitment, brand-specific associations and general brand impressions – show that the effect on brand commitment is the largest. Finally, findings show that contextual factors (brand source, product sector, culture [individualism vs collectivism], brand origin continents and respondents’ continent) and methodological factors (cues, sampling unit, publication year and sample size) significantly account for between-study variance.

This study provides the first meta-analytic review of the relationship between country-of-origin image and consumer brand evaluation to help clarify mixed findings and balance out the literature, which has only seen quantitative reviews on product evaluation and purchase decisions.

Rice consumption per capita in many Asian countries is decreasing constantly, but American and European citizens are eating more rice nowadays. A preference study among consumers was carried out with the aim of determining new rice product characteristics in order to support export of Thai rice. This paper aims to report the results

The research was based on both secondary and primary data collection. The secondary data included exploratory surveys of rice and its products which were conducted in some of Thailand's potential rice export markets. Exploratory primary data were collected through qualitative focus group research. A quantitative questionnaire with 1,128 consumers of target nationalities was conducted to access consumer attitudes and preferences with respect to rice and rice products.

Rice products were grouped with factor analysis and could be characterized by convenience (explained variance 33.9 per cent), grain variety (21.2 per cent), and tradition/naturalness (12.8 per cent). Rotated factor score plot of the preference for rice products among different nationalities showed a similarity in the preference for the tradition/natural products. Convenient products were preferred in higher income Asian countries and the non‐rice eating countries. These three product categories were correlated with consumers' ideas concerning the health‐supporting character of processed food.

Consumers' rice preferences differed greatly among nationalities. Rice exporters have to understand these different preferences in order to offer the right products to their customers. Assuming consumer preferences to be comparable to one's own country's preference can cause new product failure. This paper confirms existing differences and presents details and backgrounds of these differences.

Examines the marketing problem of knowing what customers look for in a product. Claims that for some product groups, consumers may evaluate products and their characteristics differently from what is expected, and that consumers may distort or bias their evaluation of products in the marketplace. Reports on a study that suggests that consumers may distort their evaluations of products on the basis of beliefs about how certain product attributes should go together. Finally, offers implications and recommendations in terms of how marketers may address what is referred to as “systematic distortion” of products.