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This study aims to examine how consumers’ propensity to purchase imported wines is influenced by their attitudes and perceptions toward the countries of origin (COO) of those wines.

The questionnaires were distributed online and 298 valid completed questionnaires were received. This study measured the perception of the wines’ countries of origin by adopting two independent dimensions of competence and warmth in the stereotype content model.

The results show a relationship between the purchase intention and the perception of the country of origin of the wine. Furthermore, the perceived image of the country of origin impacts the brand image of the wine and the quality of wine from its country of origin.

This study’s questionnaire was distributed online. Future research would benefit from in-depth qualitative investigation and a wider range of sample sizes across countries.

The results of this study guide imported wine companies in product marketing design and advertising. By promoting the countries of origin of premium wines to target consumers, trust in the quality of imported wine can be improved, thereby increasing consumers’ purchase intention.

This study contributes to the understanding of consumer perception of the country of origin in the context of wine marketing. It provides valuable implications for wine companies’ marketing positioning and strategy, benefiting wine marketers, distributors and importers.

This commentary and conceptual paper is aimed at investigating marketing perceptions of the country-of-origin (COO) perspectives, and emphasis is placed on the “Cool Japan” concept.

A review of research on COO and the concept of “Cool Japan” was conducted, including commentary of previous relevant theoretical frameworks.

The evidence has shown that the brand images of various COOs is dependent on their cultural exports. In the case of Japan, the “Cool Japan” initiative, which initiated the creation and dissemination of Japanese cultural contents such as anime, games and art, has led to tremendous and sustainable economic growth in Japan till date.

As previous studies on COO are wide-ranging, they are not exhaustively presented in this paper. However, the importance of considering not only animosity, which has traditionally been taken into account, but also the coolness aspect is suggested.

This paper shows that “coolness” is an important concept when nations or regions consider their branding strategies and an integrated approach is needed.

This paper extends previous COO research and adds coolness to the traditional animosity. It also considers these in comparison across countries and goes as far as the need to propose a new scale. Conceptual findings from this paper would therefore provide future directions for advancing COO research Cool Japan.

The intent of displaying country of origin (COO) detail on food packaging is to inform consumers' purchase decisions. Of interest is whether how the COO information is displayed is important to consumers. This study examines the importance of attributes associated with the visibility of COO labelling in the context of packaged fresh meat.

Best–worst Scaling (BWS) is used to investigate consumers' preferences for label attributes. Treatments involved two countries (New Zealand and Australia), four font sizes and two placement positionings of COO information on the packaging.

First, the study indicated consumers' preference for domestic than imported meat. This finding supports the intent of COO labelling, which is to inform product selection. Second, the authors ascertained that how COO information is displayed in terms of visibility is important also. Consumers indicated a preference for larger than smaller font size. However, where the COO detail is located on the packaging is of less importance.

While regulations increasingly apply to provision of COO labelling of fresh foods, surprisingly little research has considered consumers' preferences for labelling practice. The study’s findings have implications for public policy decisions and contribute guidelines for retail practice.

The objective of the study is to identify both reasons for ignoring and for paying attention to the country of origin (COO) by consumers when choosing brands of durable goods.

In this paper a qualitative approach was applied, i.e. 25 in-depth semistructured interviews with Polish consumers of durable goods purposively selected out of those who had previously participated in a quantitative survey conducted by the authors.

Among the reasons for paying attention to the COO when choosing brands of durable goods, cognitive (rational), affective (emotional) and normative factors have been identified, while among the reasons for ignoring the COO by consumers, the authors identified only cognitive (rational) and affective (emotional) factors.

The conclusions can be applied by brand managers, e.g. when making decisions whether and why to communicate COO dimensions.

This paper contributes to the international marketing literature as it develops a deeper insight into consumer behavior with reference to the consumers’ reasons for paying attention to and ignoring the COO, with very little published on the latter in particular. Furthermore, it is one of still relatively few qualitative studies conducted so far on COO taking a perspective of a consumer, especially the one from an emerging market from the European Union (EU).

Despite the plethora of research into country-of-origin (COO) effects, research that investigates the cognitive structures behind elite consumers' preferences for foreign brands remains limited. Hence, this study aims to investigate the cognitive structures behind foreign brand preference among professional elites in Sri Lanka.

Using the means-end chain (MEC) theory as the theoretical lens and building on the findings of 30 laddering interviews (semi-structured), a survey was conducted among 311 professional elites to uncover the key elements of the cognitive structures behind foreign brand preference.

The findings revealed that the cognitive structures behind foreign brand preference are influenced by a bundle of brand attributes, brand consequences and personal values of elites', which significantly influence their attitudes towards foreign brands. Multi-group analysis further revealed that the relationship between brand attributes and attitudes significantly differs across Chinese and US COOs where the path coefficient is stronger for elites' preference for Chinese brands.

This study is the first of its kind to explore the COO effects on consumer cognitive structures. The findings contribute to MEC theory and shed light on the understanding towards elites' preference for foreign brands.

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.

Western manufacturers have often benefited from the Country-of-Origin (COO) effect when a product is launched into emerging markets. The authors examine if this still holds true in the China market. The authors believe that the degree of perceived hedonism associated with the product does matter and, therefore, conducted an experiment to test how this influences the effect of COO on perceived quality and price of the product. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

A lab experiment with a 2 (COO: Western vs. Local) x 2 (Hedonism: High vs. Low) factorial design was conducted with Chinese consumers as subjects. The dependent variables were perceived quality and price of the products.

It was found that Western COO has a positive effect on the product perceived quality and price in the China market, but the effect was significantly moderated by the degree of perceived hedonism of the products.

The study used an experiment to investigate the different prominence of the COO effect on perceived quality and price in terms of hedonic vs. utilitarian products which has not been done previously. The findings provide implications concerning allocation of marketing resources to product positioning in the presence of different degrees of perceived hedonism and suggest additional areas for future examination.

This study aims to examine the influence of two significant product labelling strategies (geographical indication [GI] vs country-of-origin [COO]) on shaping customer product attitude and purchase likelihood, considering consumers’ ethnocentric and cosmopolitan tendencies. The authors also investigate the boundary conditions and intervening mechanisms to manage the adverse consumer product evaluations and present mitigating procedures which reinstate favourable product evaluations and purchase likelihood.

The collected data from these all these studies were analysed using ANOVA and mediation anlaysis. The study tests the proposed hypotheses using three follow-up experimental investigations.

The study found that GI (vs COO) labels have a more significant impact on customers’ product evaluation and likelihood of purchase and supported the dispositional effect of ethnocentric and cosmopolitan inclinations. Further, the results indicated that self-product congruence can efficiently regulate consumer dispositions. Also, the results confirmed the significant impact of product identification on influencing consumer attitudes.

The above-said insights add practical insights, particularly concerning product labelling. Also, the insights on product attitudes and purchase likelihood intricacies in the context of product labelling enable companies to comprehend better the significance of GI labels, COO labels and self-product congruence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time a study has compared the role of two significant product labelling strategies (GI vs COO) in shaping customer product evaluations, confirmed its boundary conditions and shown how to transform them into helpful customer product outcomes.

This paper investigates consumer engagement, evaluation and beliefs of domestic products and the influence of such associated attributes communicated via domestic COO labelling within the United Kingdom.

A visual ethnographic approach utilising the methods of autophotography and photo elicitation interviews was conducted to explore consumers' interaction with the domestic COO label and provenance advertising.

The results of photo elicitation interviews revealed both positive and negative cognitive, affective and normative implications of domestic provenance labelling of influence emerging within consumers.

The findings are applied to the context of the United Kingdom, with contextual limitations acknowledged of doing so. Convenience sampling limitations are also acknowledged.

The findings provide UK-based FMCG manufacturers and retailers insight into the associated attributes of domestic brand and products interpreted by consumers, communicated via a COO label, to assist in their purchasing strategies.

This paper seeks to contribute towards the understanding of provenance labelling influence on consumers for products within the FMCGs sector, whilst specifically commenting upon attributes of reliance and influence that may assist navigation of changing priorities and national sentiments.

This study aims to examine decision factors for global sourcing, differentiated into transcontinental and continental sourcing to obtain insight into locational aspects of sourcing decisions and global trends. This study analyzed various country perceptions to reveal their influence on sourcing decisions. The country of origin (COO) theory explains why certain country perceptions and images influence purchasing experts in their selection of suppliers.

This study used a two-study approach. In Study 1, the authors conducted discrete choice card experiments with 71 purchasing experts located in Europe and the USA to examine the importance of essential decision factors for global sourcing. Given the clear evidence that location is a factor in sourcing decisions, in Study 2 the authors investigated purchasers’ perceptions and images of countries, adding country ranking experiments on various perceived characteristics such as quality, price and technology.

Study 1 provides evidence that the purchasers’ personal relationship with the supplier plays a decisive role in the supplier selection process. While product quality and location impact sourcing decisions, the attraction of the buying company and cultural barriers are less significant. Interestingly, however, these factors seem as important as price to respondents. This implies that a strong relationship with suppliers and good quality products are essential aspects of a reliable and robust supply chain in the post-COVID-19 era. Examining the locational aspect in detail, Study 2 linked the choice card experiments with country ranking experiments. In this study, the authors found that purchasing experts consider that transcontinental countries such as Japan and China offer significant advantages in terms of price and technology. China has enhanced its quality, which is recognizable in the country ranking experiments. Therefore, decisions on global sourcing are not just based on such high-impact factors as price and availability; country perceptions are also influential. Additionally, the significance of the locational aspect could be linked to certain country images of transcontinental suppliers, as the COO theory describes.

The new approach divides global sourcing into transcontinental and European sourcing to evaluate special decision factors and link these factors to the locational aspect of sourcing decisions. To deepen the clear evidence for the locational aspect and investigate the possible influence of country perceptions, the authors applied the COO theory. This approach enabled authors to show the strong influence of country perception on purchasing departments, which is represented by the locational effect. Hence, the success of transcontinental countries relies not only on factors such as their availability but also on the purchasers’ positive perceptions of these countries in terms of technology and price.