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Brand origin recognition accuracy: its antecedents and consumers’ cognitive limitations

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Abstract

An ever-growing literature has reported consumer bias toward national origins of products, and has explored factors that moderate such bias. Researchers have assumed, if only tacitly, that consumers are knowledgeable of brand origins, and that this knowledge is a significant influence that drives judgments of product quality, brand attitudes, and choice behavior in the marketplace. Using categorization theory and attribute diagnosticity as the theoretical foundation, our research reveals that consumers actually have only modest knowledge of the national origins of brands, and that American consumers’ proficiency at recognizing foreign brand origins is predicted by variables such as socioeconomic status, past international travel, foreign language skills, and gender. In the second of two studies, we determined that brand origin recognition is based largely on consumers’ associations of brand names with languages that suggest country origins. These studies ultimately lead us to conclude that past research has inflated the influence that country of origin information has on consumers’ product judgments and behavior and its importance in managerial and public policy decisions.

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Notes

  1. Reviews of the extensive CO literature are provided by Papadopoulos and Heslop (1993), Samiee (1994), Al-Sulaiti and Baker (1998), and more recently by Gürhan-Canli and Maheswaran (2000).

  2. A counter-argument to the foregoing premise is that it is non-functional for consumers to retain brand-origin information in memory because point-of-purchase cues (packaging and in-store displays and signs) provide them with ‘external memories’ (Bettman, 1979) that can be acquired on demand. This appears plausible until it is noted that consumers spend a trivial amount of time inspecting brands at the point of purchase (Dickson and Sawyer, 1990).

  3. These statistics, particularly for the lower income and education groups, are generally inflated, because even a single trip to Canada or Mexico is classified as foreign travel. That is, the breadth and depth of international experience is not captured in the statistics reported by Rounds (1988). However, the author also reported the proportion of Americans who travel to further destinations, which is substantially lower than those reported for any international travel experience: Germany (17%), Great Britain (15%), France (15%), Italy (12%), Japan (7%), Australia (3%), India (1%), and the Soviet Union (1%).

  4. Two important considerations with respect to brand familiarity are noteworthy. First, if the data were screened for brand familiarity, a large portion of observed brand origin data would be systematically set aside. As it is implausible that brand familiarity explains 100% of the variance in the dependent variable, the analysis would be biased if it were limited only to brands with which respondents reported familiarity. Second, brand familiarity cannot be incorporated in the model as a separate construct because the data are at the brand level whereas the dependent variable is an aggregate account of all brands. These issues further demonstrate that the use of adjusted scores would not reflect the correct magnitude of brand origin recall and, in general, is problematic.

  5. Chi-squared with 18 df=932.638, RMSEA=0.121, NFI=0.958, NNFI=0.962, CFI=0.966, IFI=0.966, RFI=0.953.

  6. One-tailed and two-tailed p-values are reported for directional and non-directional hypotheses, respectively.

  7. MSI divides its research priorities into Gold, Silver, and Bronze categories, and brand-related topics are listed as the leading Silver-level research issues (http://www.msi.org/msi/research_priorities.cfm).

  8. The literature indicates that consumers are fairly knowledgeable about the multinational composition of many products they purchase (Shimp et al., 1993; Ahmed and d’Astous, 1995), and this knowledge has created a natural bias when attempting to assess the influence of the CO on consumers’ choice. Additional difficulties include simplicity in design (for example, whether CO is a salient consideration in choice process), unrealistic manipulations, and the artificial introduction of CO cues that have collectively led to some controversial managerial prescriptions (e.g., Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Samiee, 1994).

  9. Zenith, for example, was US-owned at the time of data collection, but is now owned by LG Electronics of Korea. To avoid this problem, brands with ambiguous origins were dropped during our pretest.

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Acknowledgements

We thank anonymous JIBS reviewers for the helpful comments and the JIBS Departmental Editor, Professor G Tomas M Hult, for his guidance throughout the review process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tulsa, USA

    Saeed Samiee

  2. University of South Carolina, USA

    Terence A Shimp & Subhash Sharma

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  1. Saeed Samiee
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Correspondence to Saeed Samiee.

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Accepted by G Tomas M Hult, Departmental Editor, 19 November 2004. This paper has been with the author for two revisions.

Appendix A1

Appendix A1

List of brands constituting the BORAUS and BORAF measures

United States

Almaden, Anne Klien, Capezio, Clinique, Conair, Converse, Emerson, Estee Lauder, Eureka, Evan Picone, Finesse, Florsheim, Halsa, Hoover, Hotpoint, JG Hook, Jergens, Jhirmack, Jovan, Keds, Keri, L’envie, LaChoy, LeSeur, Liz Claiborne, Maytag, Medipren, Nunn Bush, Nuprin, Oscar de Lorenta, Pantene, Proctor Silex, Reebok, Regina, Samsonite, Silkience, Sunbeam, Tappan, Vidal-Sassoon, Zenith

England

Advil, Laura Ashley

France

Aigner, Bic, Chanel, Evian, Germaine Montel, Lancôme, Perrier

Germany

Adidas, Agfa, Bayer, Braun, Dual, Lowenbraü, Nivea, Pendelton, Puma, Zeiss

Italy

Bandolino, Benetton, Nordica, Olivetti

Japan

Canon, Citizen, Epson, Fuji, Minolta, NEC, Nikon, Sharp

Switzerland

Bally, Cartier, Movado, Omega, Piaget, Rolex, Swatch

Not listed

GoldStar, Magnavox, Norelco, Phillips, Samsung, Soundesign

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Samiee, S., Shimp, T. & Sharma, S. Brand origin recognition accuracy: its antecedents and consumers’ cognitive limitations. J Int Bus Stud 36, 379–397 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400145

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