اثرات کشور مبدا در پردازش مصرف کننده از ادعاهای تبلیغاتی

We propose that country of origin has a dual impact on product evaluations, acting as informational cue, but also as source variable, moderating the impact of ads on product evaluations. In support, we find a direct effect of country of origin on product evaluations, and a three-way interaction between country of origin, claim favorability and ad involvement. Further analyses show that country of origin influences the way in which consumers respond to moderate and extreme claims under conditions of low and high ad involvement. The dual impact of country of origin on consumer behavior emphasizes its relevance to (international) marketing.

Consumers differentiate between products from different origin countries, a phenomenon that has become known as the country-of-origin effect (for reviews see Agrawal & Kamakura, 1999 and Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999). The country-of-origin effect is rooted in consumers' images of the quality of specific products marketed by firms associated with a country of origin. These images have been referred to as product–country images (Heslop & Papadopoulos, 1993), and may be based on actual product experience, but also on information gathered through advertising and other sources of product information, including word-of-mouth and articles in the popular press. Previous research on country-of-origin effects has examined the composition of product–country images (e.g., Han, 1989, Roth & Romeo, 1992 and Verlegh, 1999), and how consumers use country of origin as a cue for determining product quality — either by itself, or in conjunction with other product information (e.g., Häubl & Elrod, 1999). These studies have shown that consumers use product–country images as a cognitive shortcut when evaluating products, especially when other information is scarce (Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999). Country of origin has a greater impact on product evaluations when consumers are less motivated to process available information, for example when involvement is low (Han, 1989 and Maheswaran, 1994). Erickson, Johansson and Chao (1984) found that country of origin may bias consumers' product beliefs. They found for example that perceptions of cars' economy were biased upward for Japanese cars, while perceptions of the quality of the cars were biased upward for German cars. Johansson, Douglas and Nonaka (1985) build on this study and confirm that country of origin affects consumers' product attitudes by biasing their perceptions of particular attributes like gas mileage or driving comfort. The authors also find that this bias is stronger when product knowledge is low.

This study examined a dual role of country of origin in influencing consumers' product evaluations. We find support for the notion that country of origin acts both as information variable and as source variable. We find that country of origin strongly influences consumer product evaluations, even in the presence of additional information presented by ad claims. This finding adds to the body of research indicating that consumers use country of origin as an informational variable, and reinforces the notion that country of origin plays an important role in consumer product evaluations (cf., Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999). Furthermore, our results show that consumers rely more on country of origin when they are less involved with the ad. This supports the notion that consumers use country of origin as a cognitive shortcut, a strategy that is relied upon when consumers seek to minimize cognitive efforts (Han, 1989 and Maheswaran, 1994). Earlier studies (Erickson et al., 1984 and Johansson et al., 1985) show that country of origin affects consumers' perceptions of product attributes. We extend this finding by showing that country of origin may act as a source variable that moderates the effect of ad claims on product evaluations. In line with the literature on (corporate) source credibility, we propose that the source credibility of a country of origin is higher when consumers associate it with a more favorable product–country image. In line with earlier research (e.g., Goldberg & Hartwick, 1990), we argue that country-of-origin credibility determines the extent to which consumers are influenced by moderately vs. extremely favorable ad claims. We extend this research by explicitly incorporating the role of ad involvement in this process. Ad involvement is an important determinant of the extent to which consumers carefully consider both the credibility of the source and the favorability of claims. At lower levels of involvement, consumers are more likely to take ad claims at face value, and incorporate them into their product evaluations. However, as involvement increases, consumers more carefully examine the level of favorability of ad claims vis-à-vis their product–country images. In that case, an ad for a product from a country with an unfavorable product–country image will be perceived as less credible when it features extremely favorable claims, than when it features moderately favorable claims. In other words, we propose that increasing claim favorability has a negative effect when source credibility is low, and ad involvement is high. This notion is supported by a significant interaction between ad involvement and claim favorability when product–country image is unfavorable. The impact of this interaction on product evaluations is mediated by the perceived credibility of the advertising claims.