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The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize and test a new concept named “Brand Origin RECall Accuracy” (BORECA) that assesses consumers’ ability to recall accurately the origins of brands they are aware of. It measures consumers’ brand awareness and brand origin (BO) awareness for a given product category.

Based on the accessibility–diagnosticity model and the limitations of the brand origin recognition accuracy concept, the authors propose and test the BORECA concept focusing on one product category (apparel) in an emerging country context, i.e. Tunisia (Mena). A sample of 374 respondents were surveyed on country-of-origin (COO)-category awareness, brand awareness, BO awareness and foreign vs local brand quality evaluation. Descriptive statistics, correlation indices, MANOVA and linear regression analysis were used in data analysis.

Results show a substantial BORECA score, i.e. highly accurate awareness of the origins of the recalled brands, affected by respondents’ age, gender and education level. The average BORECA score for local brands is higher than for foreign brands. The local BORECA score seems to positively correlate to respondents’ evaluation of local brand quality and negatively to foreign (dominant COO category) brands.

Based on an aided recall task rather than simple recognition, BORECA provides a deeper assessment of brand awareness and BO awareness. The pressure induced by the task (knowledge test + retrieval effort) may cause anxiety bias that inhibits the recall of other brands and BOs.

Nationalistic and ethnocentric tendencies emerging in the findings point to some branding strategies for both local and foreign companies.

The paper provides a good indication of BO salience in an emerging economy. It seeks to explain the impact of the BORECA score for local brands on the perceived quality of both local and foreign brands.

Examines consumers’ perception of brands as influenced by their origins and the differences in classification ability between consumers’ knowledge levels. Specifically, culture‐of‐brand‐origin (COBO) is proposed to have replaced country‐of‐origin (COO) as the most important origin influence regarded by consumers in their perceptions of brands. Culture‐of‐brand‐origin is used to mean the cultural origin or heritage of a brand. Data were gathered from 459 respondents in the Asian city of Singapore; and used to assess Singaporean consumers’ ability to classify the cultural origins of fashion clothing brands. This was compared to their ability to classify the country origins of the same brands. Six brands were used in a between‐subjects design, with three brands of western countries and three of eastern countries. Results indicate that consumers can more readily identify the cultural origin of brands over their country‐of‐origin. Reveals that a consumer’s ability to make this distinction is influenced by the consumer’s perception of how well he/she knows the brand.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of country-of-origin (COO) image on brand attitude and brand loyalty of Generation Y’s consumers toward two categories of luxury fashion brands.

First, a structural equation modeling method was employed based on data collected from 419 individuals born between 1977 and 1994 in Iran. In next steps, analysis was conducted using hierarchical regression analysis with a two-way interaction and a slope analysis. Watches and sunglasses are two luxury product categories chosen in this study.

The findings of the study reveal that consumers’ perception from COO technology advancement is the determinant of attitude toward luxury brands. COO technology advancement also, mediated by brand attitude, has an indirect positive effect on luxury brand loyalty. Moreover, the interaction between COO technology advancement and product-origin congruency has a significant and positive effect on consumers’ brand attitude.

This study has tried to investigate the impact of the constructs of the COO image on attitude and loyalty toward luxury brands in Generation Y. It has also dealt with the effect of product-origin congruency on the relationship between each one of the constructs of the COO image and brand attitude.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumers perceive the trustworthiness of halal certifications from various Muslim and non-Muslim countries, a topic highly disregarded despite the size of the market and the importance in penetrating the multibillion market.

A customized factorial design was employed to measure main effects of brand familiarity, country trustworthiness and country favourability and interaction effects.

Although Indonesia and Malaysia are Muslim countries, they are not perceived as trustworthy as others such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for the consumer product under study. The perception of trustworthiness of halal certification of origin explains the highest proportion of the variance in the preference for a product, followed by the interaction of country favourability and brand name country of origin (COO).

Managers of international companies should be aware that not all halal country certifications are equally perceived as trustworthy therefore, they should seek alliances, with institutions in markets where they seek to penetrate.

The procedure for certification considers the whole value chain rather than just simple ritual of slaughtering. Managers have a big responsibility to produce their products according to the expected standards (and this goes beyond the simple slaughtering ritual) and make sure that all employees understands the importance of such adherence.

Muslim consumers’ preferences vary according to the COO of halal products, even within Muslim countries therefore, halal certification country-of-origin is a sensitive social concern.

This research is based on COO and brand familiarity frameworks, and it extends the knowledge in a context (halal products) not frequently explored.

Recent research has shown that the country-of-origin (COO) effect – the influence on consumers’ attitudes and purchase behavior derived from a brand’s perceived association with a country – is inextricably linked to consumer perception. The purpose of this paper is to examine this shift by considering origin as a characteristic derived from perceived association and also by proposing that this association varies by degree, rather than simply acting as a binary attribute in its effect on consumer attitudes.

Data from a test series in which respondents (n=100) rated 38 brand-country pairs were put to split-half multi-group analysis tests to capture the moderating influence of association strength (AS) on several facets of country image (CI) simultaneously.

AS is a variable that exerts a moderating influence on how different dimensions of CI influence consumers’ evaluation of brands.

The findings indicate that origin, as a characteristic, should be considered an association that is variable by degree and not as dichotomous. The implications of such a shift are broad, not only for the theoretical understanding of the COO effect but also for marketing and brand management practice. Accounting for AS allows for more accurate prediction of how consumers will react to COO.

The paper explicitly demonstrates that the strength of country-brand association moderates COO’s influence on brand equity. Such a relationship had previously only been theoretically implied but had not been empirically tested across multiple categories of products on multiple levels of CI.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of country of origin (COO) information on brand perception and brand image structure.

Through an analytical review, research hypotheses were built. An empirical investigation was carried out among Japanese consumers. Two brands of electronics with different levels of reputation were investigated.

Results showed that COO had an effect on brand perception. This effect differs across brands and across countries of production. Brand‐origin appears to be of significant impact on consumer perception. Brand images are found to be multidimensional. Their structures differ across brands and across COO.

COO has multiple effects on brand image perception. Brand image is multidimensional. This research dealt with one type of product among culturally similar respondents which may limit the finding.

Marketing actions should be customized across brands with different levels of reputation. Brand image should be assessed as a multidimensional concept incorporating multiple facets. Consumers are influenced by the brand‐origin. Marketers should be aware of this association.

This research tests the multidimensional aspect of brand image structure and effect of COO information on brand image structure. Results show that COO information affects both the degree of fragmentation of brand image as well as its composition.

To examine whether the country of origin (COO) effect actually exists in an e-commerce context, the authors intend to contribute to the ongoing debate by measuring the COO effect through a series of connected studies.

Drawing on cue utilization theory, the authors emphasize the urge to investigate the COO effect in multiple cue settings in order to reveal a more realistic picture of its actual effect size. In contrast to most prior research, which often does not analyze COO using methodological plurality and neglects important contextual factors, the authors employed a four-staged research design in an attempt to trigger and measure the COO’s implicit effect size in today’s pervasive context of online shopping. The importance of brands (inhering the COO) is decompositionally calculated relative to other extrinsic cues by applying a Hierarchical Bayes estimation, with the COO impact being extracted subsequently.

The results deepen concerns that the COO effect actually does not exist, particularly in the more contemporary context of online shopping. Specifically, preferences for previously favored German products faded when controlling for brand attitude for both high-involvement (p = 0.003) and low-involvement products (p = 0.024).

The study focused on consumers of Generation Y, as they represent one of the most important segments in online shopping. Findings might be replicated for other consumer generations. The study focused on Chinese consumers, as the Chinese e-commerce market represents the world’s largest one. Future studies might investigate other markets.

As brands, rather than a COO effect, impacted consumer preferences, companies selling their products to Chinese consumers online need to establish a reputation for quality early on. Chinese companies should emphasize their COO to make use of the ethnocentrism detected. Companies profit from the Best-Worst Scaling investigation revealing which product categories Chinese consumers most preferably buy online from German companies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to capture the importance of COO in the contemporary context of ubiquitous online shopping. Moreover, a more realistic and less biased way of measuring the importance of COO is enabled by building upon three pre-connected studies. The findings allow to develop a generalization for both high- and low-involvement products.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in‐depth examination of country‐of‐origin (COO) perceptions of consumers in a multinational setting. It shows how explanatory factors like demographics, familiarity with a country's products, purchase behaviour and psychological variables jointly work to explain consumers' COO perceptions.

This is a quantitative study using a drop‐off and pick‐up survey among three samples of consumers in Canada, Morocco and Taiwan. The final sample size was comprised of 506 male consumers. The data were analyzed using factor analysis to group countries of origin and analyses of variance to relate COO perceptions to the explanatory variables.

The familiarity with products made in a country was the strongest predictor of country perceptions, followed by nationality and the manufacturing process and product complexity dimensions of country evaluation. Canadians had the highest propensity to distinguish between countries of origin on the basis of product technological complexity and manufacturing dimensions and Moroccans the least. Taiwanese appeared to show animosity towards China.

The study used an only‐male sample from a limited number of countries. Future research should seek to develop a multi‐dimensional scale for the familiarity construct. They should also explore the concept of consumer capacity to distinguish between COOs. Cross‐national studies using cognitive style scales should be carried out. A qualitative examination of Taiwanese's COO perceptions is also recommended.

It seems important to increase consumers' familiarity with a COO and its products to improve its overall perception. Products made in Latin American countries have the lowest level of familiarity in general. Thus, increasing familiarity with their products is particularly important to achieve export success.

This study contributes to the marketing and international business literatures and provides insights to international marketers by bringing valuable information that can help make decisions as to where to manufacture and how to promote global products. It provides guidance as to what types of nations are likely to require multi‐dimensional information about countries of origin.

This study aims to test the central role of the perceived reputation of country-of-origin (COO) firms between cultural and socio-psychological variables and management and economic variables that help to explain the multi-faceted phenomenon of COO on a developing market. It also tests the moderator role of ethnocentrism, which is the objective of recommending different segment marketing strategies for international firms.

The study opted for the structure equation modelling methodology to analyze data collected from 274 Mexican car owners who evaluate Korean automobiles.

The results show that the COO reputation of firms from a developing market has a mediating role on the relationship between cultural openness and animosity and trust, risk and purchase intention, but the consequents of the perceived reputation of COO vary depending on the level of consumers’ ethnocentrism.

Firms seeking to internationalize need to find out how to overcome the hurdle of target market animosity, to increase the cultural openness and to promote trust and purchases in international markets; at the same time, they reduce the perception of risk. In this sense, it might help to increase the perceived reputation of COO firms and to use different marketing strategies according to the target market.

This study analyzes reputation of firms associated to a COO as a signal that can help to solve purchase decisions in the relationship between consumers and firms from developing markets and also corroborates its role as a mediator factor. In addition, this study empirically tests how animosity and cultural openness influence perceived reputation of COO firms, relationships that has scarcely been studied in literature. This study has also found that less and more ethnocentric consumers have differences in how the COO cues influence on their evaluations and behaviour. Finally, as insufficient consumer research has been conducted into emerging and developing markets, this study focuses on consumers from a developing country and regards automobiles from an emerging country.

Luxury brands’ marketing efforts have traditionally focussed on developed nations since that has comprised the majority of consumer demand. However, double-digit growth in developing nations such as India and China, have attracted the attention of most luxury brand managers. Using cue utilization theory, the authors conducted a qualitative study in two phases comprised of first, focus group discussions (FGD), structured observations (SO) and second, In-Depth Interviews (IDI) to understand the effects of country of origin (COO) on Indian consumers’ current day purchasing behaviors with luxury products. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using cue utilization theory, the authors conducted a qualitative study in two phases comprised of first, FGD, SO and second, IDI to understand the effects of COO on Indian consumers’ current day purchasing behaviors with luxury products. A conceptual framework has been developed that should help luxury brands formulate marketing strategies for this booming market.

Further, this study found that COO affects the exploration of luxury brands and this process is carried out digitally and primarily with friends. Luxury brand managers can insert detailed information about COO on web sites and can understand the keywords used in the search engines to facilitate consumers using appropriate consideration data. This research also found that COO is compared on the basis of quality, features and innovation.

The results of this study are only from one emerging country, i.e., India. Similar studies should be carried out in other emerging nations. Additionally, developed countries can also carry out comprehensive research in this domain as their behavior is also changing for COO and luxury brands.

This insight can be used by the brand managers and they can develop apps and web sites that would help the consumers to compare the COO for their products. Additionally, this research found that COO helps the luxury consumers to evaluate the brands and how they associate it with consumer images. Luxury brand managers need to be conscious when their countries products/ brands have been rated low by the consumers as it could result in consumers simply discarding them from their consideration set.