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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of ethnocentrism in attenuating the negative country of origin effect and latecomer brands. The literature has established the importance of the “country of origin” effect, and this study compares consumers in the Asian emerging markets to developed consumers' response to cars from China, India and Russia.

Data on consumers' willingness to purchase cars from emerging markets such as China, India and Russia were collected from 3,201 respondents in those three emerging markets and in the three most important Western car markets, the USA, the UK and Germany. The study employed a choice-based conjoint analysis.

The results of this study confirmed the hypothesised ethnocentrism in the emerging markets with a strong preference for their own latecomer brands (Great Wall, Tata and AvtoVAZ, respectively). Developed markets in contrast are more sceptical of the Chinese, Indian and Russian car brands, but there is nonetheless substantial potential, especially with consumers who have previously bought latecomer brands from Asia. Utility values per brand, price, brand-partnership, product features, warranties and also place of manufacturing/assembly have been calculated in the study.

This paper should prove valuable to academic researchers in establishing strong consumer preferences in emerging markets for their own products, and in establishing the potential of latecomer brands in developed markets.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to identify the influence of brand equity (BE) of commoditized products of famous brand on purchase intention and willingness to pay a premium price in an emerging market; second, to identify the relationship between the BE of these products and their antecedents; and third, to identify the influence of subjective norms on purchase intention and BE. Commoditized products are bought due to necessity and not desire, are homogeneous, produced on a large scale, and have low added value.

A theoretical model is proposed contemplating the constructs: BE, purchase intention, premium price, perceived quality, brand recall, perceived value and subjective norms. We performed a quantitative study with 432 respondents. We used questionnaires, and we analyzed the data using the structural equation modeling with partial least squares.

The results indicate a positive relationship between BE and purchase intention, BE and premium price, perceived value and BE, subjective norms and purchase intention and subjective norms and BE. It should be noted that an emerging market has characteristics distinct to that of a mature market, justifying specific research in this context.

The study brought a theoretical model relating antecedents and consequents of BE in the segment of commoditized products. Furthermore, it indicated the strength of the brand of the commoditized products in an emerging market scenario.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of gamification on connections between consumers’ self-image congruence in relation to the purchasers of an environmentally friendly product electric vehicles (EVs) and their possession of a stereotype of EV owners as being “unconventional”, and their attitudes towards EVs, having regard to their levels of environmental concern and prior knowledge of EVs. Additionally, the research explored the link between attitudes towards and willingness to purchase EVs.

Participants completed a questionnaire and an Implicit Association Test (IAT) both before and after playing a computer game wherein the player assumed the identity of an EV driver. A structural equation model was constructed to predict attitude to EVs. The relationship between attitude and willingness to purchase was examined via a conditional process analysis.

The experience of playing the game improved the favourability of the respondents’ stereotype of EV owners by an average of 19 per cent, and their attitude towards EVs by 17 per cent. Self-image congruence in relation to EV ownership increased on the average by 14 per cent and reported EV product knowledge by 8 per cent. However, willingness to purchase an EV was not substantially affected. The link between attitude and willingness to purchase was weak, but was significantly moderated by stereotype favourability and self-image congruence with EV owners.

As with any IAT study, it was necessary to pre-specify a particular form of stereotype. Future research could employ alternative stereotypes. The investigation took place in a single country and involved a single environmentally friendly product.

Gamification has much potential for helping manufacturers and government agencies to stimulate the mass market for EVs. To negate unfavourable images of EV owners, marketing communications promoting EVs might usefully employ celebrities, sports personalities and/or leading political figures as exemplars of the types of people who drive electric cars.

The research is the first to explore the effects of gamification on product user self-image congruence and stereotype formation. It is novel both in its employment of an IAT to measure the consumer stereotype of an environmentally friendly product and in its examination of the moderating influences of stereotype and product user self-image congruence on the attitude-willingness to purchase link.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the value of brands and countries of origin in monetary units. The automobile industry in Thailand is chosen because of the variety of brands and the intense competition within the industry. Both the pick up truck and passenger car market shares have been dominated by Japanese brands for decades, whilst the luxury market has been dominated by German brands.

The data are collected from an authors' survey carried out during the “Thailand International Motor Expo 2007”. A total of 244 models are chosen from 20 brands, and from 7 countries of origin. The hedonic price model is applied to ascertain the price premiums of these different brands, taking into account their countries of origin, since each automobile brand offers several models with distinguishably different features.

The results indicate that different brand names affect consumers' “Willingness to Pay,” in which Mercedes, BMW, and Audi brands are ranked the highest. Surprisingly, Subaru, Mitsubishi and Toyota are the only Japanese brands to have significant brand values. The findings also illustrate a direct relationship between market acceptance and the price premium for automobiles in the luxury car segment, however the same relationship does not hold true for the cars in economy car segment. It seems that Thai consumers put the highest value on cars from Germany, whilst cars from Japan and the USA possess approximately the same value. Korean and Malaysian cars, which focus on low‐prices as a means to obtain a competitive advantage, are as to be expected ranked last. An association was found between countries' GDP per capita and the price premium. Countries with a lower GDP per capita show lower price premiums and vise versa. The exception is Germany, which has a low GDP per capita yet has a higher price premium than the better ranked GDP countries such as the USA

Though the German brands are ranked the highest, competition in the car industry is likely to be intense, since their premiums are not noticeably different. Additionally, there are implications regarding entry barriers for new automobile brands from the same or different countries. These entry barriers are considered to be quite high, as the brand premiums could represent more than 25 percent of the car prices, at least for the compact car segment. A strategy of discounted price penetration is therefore recommended for a brand which is new to the market, and which does not originate from a highly regarded country. For existing brands with below average values, a customer‐based approach is recommended in which those brands improve the attributes in order to create higher premiums.

In addition to confirming the relationship between the price premiums of brands and their countries of origin, this paper successfully provides valuations in monetary units and rankings accordingly. This research could be useful to both incumbents and new entrants, when designing their pricing strategies.

This paper aims to investigate if trust plays a mediating role on the country-of-origin (COO) brand reputation and consumer animosity effects in determining consumers’ purchase intentions in both emerging and developed markets.

The paper opted for the structure equation modelling methodology to analyse data collected from 476 Spanish and Mexican car owners who evaluate American automobiles.

The results show that in the emerging market economy, the COO's brand reputation influences trust and purchase intention more than in the mature market. Also, the results show that although trust plays an important role in different markets because it mediates the effect of COO's brand reputation on consumers’ purchase intention in both emerging and mature economies, it does not mediate the effect of animosity on purchase intention in the analysed developed economy.

The chosen category product presents the shortcoming of being of a hybrid nature regarding their manufacturing origin and research results may not be generalizable since we consider one product of one COO.

COO's brand reputation is a key trigger of trust, and can substitute absent regulatory institutional elements, especially in emerging markets. In emerging markets, animosity could play an important role in explaining the rejection of foreign products, but the increase of trust could mitigate its negative effect on purchase intention.

This study distinguishes the mediating role of trust between different interrelated COO variables and consumers’ purchase intentions in two different national contexts, and offers evidence that good COO's brand reputation building is crucial for international marketing success.

Chinese and Indian car manufacturers are entering developed markets. The question arises how they will be perceived by consumers from those countries. Using the multi‐dimensional brand personality scale, this paper provides an explorative study of the country of origin effect on U.S. consumers’ brand perception of automobiles from China and India. Our multivariate analysis of variance shows differences in terms of brand excitement, brand competence, brand sophistication, and brand ruggedness. Our results indicate that the Chinese car is perceived to be more daring, up‐to‐date, and outdoorsy than the Indian and U.S. car; more intelligent, successful, and upper‐class than the Indian car; and more charming than the U.S. car. The U.S. car is perceived as more successful than the Indian car.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

To explain and empirically test how different marketing communication channels interact with each other and contribute to brands’ diverging marketplace performance.

With a unique data set combining key variables of major passenger car brands, the paper takes a source-based perspective to investigate how firm-based communications, expert opinions and online consumer reviews interact and affect brands’ marketplace performance. Then the paper studies the three special boundary conditions under which online consumer reviews’ influence varies in competition with the other two established information sources. Lastly, a study was done to demonstrate the financial significance of investing in different information sources.

The results show that online consumer reviews mitigate the effectiveness of the other two information sources in driving brand sales. This mitigation effect is also magnified when the brand is weak, firm-based communications are modest and expert opinions are less favorable. The findings further suggest that in the emerging communication enterprise, firm-based and expert-based communications remain the core while user-based communication plays an indispensable competing and complementary role.

In the new digital era, firms are facing the daunting task of understanding and integrating multiple communication channels. The study provides important implications for both researchers and practitioners with respect to brand management and integrated communications.

Existing studies have demonstrated that each of the three communication efforts (by firms, experts and consumers) exerts a significant influence on product sales, but few studies have been conducted in settings marked by the coexistence of these efforts. In addition, the three communication efforts are likely to have different effects on brands with different market positions. The current study is contributing to the literature by filling the above gaps.

Local brands in emerging markets suffer from fierce competition and chronic disadvantages. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if outbreaks of animosity against the West (AAW) might benefit local brands by raising consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to buy (WTB).

The study employed 2 methods: structural equation modeling (n=244 Chinese students); and experiment, multiple regression (n=676 Chinese students, different sample than those included in study 1).

AAW is different from ethnocentrism and the measurement has good validity and reliability. After an outbreak of animosity, AAW increases Chinese consumers’ WTB local products. The WTP is also enhanced by AAW in such a situation. Under “normal” circumstances, there is no effect of AAW on the WTP. This might be due to the cost of substituting western goods for local ones (e.g. inferior perceived quality and other-signaling value). An outbreak of animosity presents a risk to consumers and thus lowers their overall WTP.

The study introduces the construct “AAW,” which stretches the animosity construct to an inter-regional level. On such a level, it is possible to find consequences of animosity on local brand consumption, which have not been the focus of previous studies. Additionally, this research introduces the concept of WTP to animosity research. The measurement is built on a real economic exchange and better represents the cost aspects of substituting one brand for another.