Consumer Behavior and Countries of Origin (COO) Countries of origin (COO) effects dominates other effects in influencing consumer buying patterns

Importance of COO

Consumers transfers imagined qualities of COO to product

COO is used as heuristic in regards to expensive products.

COO impacts brand name

COO influences consumer's impression of brand name.

Negative COO may require different marketing techniques for brand name.

Percepts that Impact COO

Emotions / Ideology Influence Perception of COO

Emotional

Political / moral

Consumers tend to be influenced by developed country of origin (with quality cues) as a competitive advantage when it comes to buying particular luxury goods, but certain exceptions may nullify that rule.

Consumer Behavior and Countries of Origin (COO)

The purpose of this essay is to examine the country of origin as it pertains to buying behavior. The thesis statement of this research is that consumers tend to be influenced by country of origin as a competitive advantage when it comes to buying particular luxury goods..

Countries of origin (COO) effects have an indubitable effect on consumer buying patterns. Much research shows that the COO serves as cue to performance, quality, or other attributes. Research was done on single cue treatments only (i.e. COO shown alone) and multiple cue treatments (i.e. COO shown in conjunction with other attributes such as price and performance) (Balabanis, Mueller, & Memewar, 2002). Results have almost invariably demonstrated that COO alone, presented without price and brand information, may be more powerful as product complexity and risk increases. Similarly, the more expensive the product, the more country of origin seems to play a significant part in propelling buyer behavior. The costlier the product, the more difficult it usually becomes to form judgments, impelling customers to rely on brand name and COO as guarantee (Kaynak, Kucukemiroglu, & Hyder, 2000; Paswan & Sharma, 2004; Watson & Wright, 2000).

COO seems to play an inordinately...

For instance when the product was produced in a less developed country, brand name seemed to play a more minor part in buying decision and the COO seemed to predominate. More so this effect also extends to bi-national products: COO in each and every case overwhelmed the impression made by the brand name, and (if sourced in a so-called 'underdeveloped country) usually deterred consumer from buying the product (Ahmed et al., 2004). In fact, the negative effects of the COO may go so far as to require different promotion and advertising schemes for marketing the product.
It has also been suggested that the brand name is often associated in the consumer's mind with the COO, thus mention of the brand name alone instantly hauls along with it, whether or not correctly, the COO, consequently impacting the consumer's judgment regarding whether or not to buy the product. A case in point here would be the Phillips product, which consumers may associate with the Netherlands. According to this association, the Netherlands -- the COO rather than the brand name -- is the item that ultimately remains in people's memory influencing their buying decision, and usually the more developed the country, the greater the allure it gave to the product, and, particularly, if the product was costly, the more it determined consumer's decision to acquire that particular product.

That such is the case was discovered by Kaynak et al. (2000) in a study that examined Bangladeshi consumers' quality perceptions of products outsourced from nine foreign countries from where Bangladesh usually imported most of its foreign goods, and compared that with the country's perceptions of their domestic products. The researchers discovered that Bangladeshis overwhelmingly preferred western products, not so much because of their brand name but because of their COO, and that this preference rose as the costliness of the product increased. Apparently theoretical attributes of the COO served as guarantee for the characteristics of the product. If the country manifested quality, for instance, image of that product would be boosted in the consumer's imagination. It…