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There is a rising number of Asian brands expanding to Western nations. However, one of the biggest challenges is their reputation of inferior quality. The objectives of this research are to examine the U.S. consumers’ quality perception of Asian brands and what steps can be taken to improve their perceived quality to ultimately influence patronage intentions. This study also considers how age influences U.S. consumers’ perceived quality and patronage intentions.

An online experiment using 328 U.S. female subjects was conducted to examine how quality cues (brand origin and product design) influence their perceived quality of Asian brands. The study also examines how age (due to different levels of exposure of Asian brands) moderates the relationship between product cues and perceived quality.

The findings showed that there was a difference between the younger (Generation X and Y) and older (Baby boomers and Swing) group’s perceived quality of these Asian brand origins, namely Japan and China. Product design had an impact on perceived quality, but age was not a moderating factor.

Chinese and Japanese brands can use these differences in perception of brand origins to market accordingly. Product design cues can also be used effectively to both age groups by Asian brands to improve the perceived quality of U.S. consumers.

This research provides novel insight on U.S. consumers’ perceived quality and patronage intentions from different Asian brand cues. The study also contributes to the body of literature on how the relationship between specific Asian brand cues and perceived quality may differ as a function of age.

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.

Purpose – The marketing literature does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the role of consumer's attention in the process of how Country-of-Manufacture (COM) information influences consumer product evaluations. The research contributes to an improved understanding of this process by integrating the construct of “attention to Country-of-Manufacture” into the model and examining its relationship with the influence of COM.

Design/methodology/approach – Survey data are collected from American consumers aged 18 years and above. To test the research hypotheses, MANOVA and canonical correlation analysis are performed in analyzing the data.

Findings – COM has more influence on the attentive group (consumers consciously paying attention to the COM information on a product label), on their evaluations of abstract product attributes such as durability and reliability than it does on the inattentive group (consumers not paying conscious attention to such information). In contrast, COM's influences on evaluating concrete product attributes such as style, model, availability, and quality are all significantly related to involvement with COM, but not to attention.

Research limitations/implications – The product assessments sought from respondents are generally on “foreign” products. Future research needs to obtain product-specific evaluations within each product category in testing the model and see how the results may differ or not differ across product categories.

Practical implications – Marketers selling products with high performance in abstract attributes such as durability and reliability should increase consumers’ attention to the COM through effective product labeling.

Originality/value – This research identifies and empirically investigates the difference of COM effects on consumers’ product judgment between consumers who are attentive and the ones who are inattentive to COM information.

This chapter traces the development of the pricing research program of Kent Monroe, beginning with his doctoral dissertation and continuing to the present time. Drawing on psychophysics and adaptation-level theory the early research efforts concentrated on validating two important concepts relative to behavioral pricing research: reference price and acceptable price range. Then the behavioral pricing research program expanded to explore how the context of a purchase situation, including the structure of the prices available for judgment, influences buyers' price perceptions and willingness to buy. In the early years his research included pricing models and research on patronage behavior. Subsequently, concentrating primarily on behavioral pricing research, he began to integrate findings from the research program into examining how various sellers pricing strategies and tactics influence buyers' judgments and purchase decisions. These efforts led to the first edition of his book Pricing – Making Profitable Decisions published in 1979. The book was subsequently revised and expanded in 1990 and again in 2003.

This chapter summarizes the behavioral pricing research findings of price and how buyers respond to price. This includes the relationship between price and perceived value and the decision heuristics that help us understand how price influences perceptions of value and eventual product choice. Buyers also use price as an indicator of product quality, and customers’ perceptions of quality, benefits, and value affect how they will respond to a purchase situation. In addition, buyers’ perceptions of the sacrifice affect the purchase decision, that is the degree that consumers reflect on the amount that they would “give up” by paying the monetary price for a product may vary according to a variety of situations and conditions, such as type of product or service, or the perceived unfairness of the price, or if the buyer perceives a brand is superior to competing brands. The chapter also discusses how buyers trade off or compare the perceived gains arising from price-quality judgments versus the perceived sacrifice required to acquire the product or service, including whether buyers integrate price and other attribute information following a nonlinear (proportional) or linear (subtractive) process. It also summarizes research on price as a multidimensional attribute, considered with additional dimensions such as warranty coverage, and warrantor reputation. Finally, the chapter examines perceived product value as being decomposed into its (1) perceived acquisition value (the expected benefit to be gained from acquiring the product less the net displeasure of paying for it) and (2) perceived transaction value (the perceived merits or fairness of the offer or deal).

Corporations in all industries recognize the demand for responsible business behavior and have developed corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs accordingly. This paper examines to which extent sustainability practices – unrelated to the actual ingredients of a consumable product – affect brand equity, taste perceptions, and perceived emotional value. In an experimental setting, effects were determined of the presence or lack of a sustainability-marketing message within a beer brand’s promotional material. The constructs were measured in a survey, and a PLS-SEM was used to analyze the results. In the factor model, all constructs proved to be sufficiently reliable and valid. The experiment’s results indicate that taste perception is positively influenced by the presence of a sustainability message.

Understanding the impact of marketing-related investments on market-based assets is a fundamental issue for marketers. In this study we address the relationship between product-related investments and communication-related efforts, with respect to a basic intangible market-based asset: consumer-based dimensions of brand equity. We draw from a longitudinal study of pre-purchase brand attribute data derived from consumer panels, conducted within the context of the U.S. automotive market. Brand equity dimensions are statistically related to marketing investments and contextual factors of “region of origin” and “global brand reach,” employing a seemingly unrelated regression model. The results reveal a positive effect of communication-related investments, as measured by annual advertising expenditures, on all dimensions of brand equity except luxury image. Product-related investments, as indicated by a brand's innovativeness, positively affect brand image but negatively affect perceived economy. Region of origin and global brand reach have mixed effects on the consumer-based dimensions of brand equity.