ANALYZING CONSUMERS

Analyzing consumers



Chapter1

Introduction

Background

Country-of-origin image (COI) reflects a consumer's general perceptions about the quality of products made in a particular country and the nature of people from that country (Erickson et al., 1984; Han, 1986, 1989; Haubl, 1996b; Parameswaran and Yaprak, 1987). Generally, researchers have demonstrated that, when known to consumers, COI influences the evaluation of products in general, specific classes of products, and specific brands (Baughn and Yaprak, 1993; Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Liefeld, 1993; Ozsomer and Cavusgil, 1991; Samiee, 1994). For example, most people are likely to evoke differing impressions of cars made in Germany and Russia; of men's suits made in Italy and Spain; or of VCRs made in Japan and Malaysia. If the stereotype is negative, it can impose formidable barriers for marketers attempting to enter a market or position products in an existing market. Alternatively, numerous firms have used positive COI to good advantage in the marketing of many types of goods (e.g. Germany and beer; Sweden and cars; Japan and micro-electronics) (Haubl, 1996b; Johansson and Nebenzahl, 1986; Liefeld, 1993; Papadopoulos et al., 1988).

Purpose Of Study

The Purpose of the study will be to Analyze consumers attitudes toward Japanese cars in UK market:

Problem Statement

Why japanese car does not popular as European cars in UK market?

Hypotheses

This discussion leads to the following hypotheses regarding the single flexible model. When a product's country of origin is known to the consumer.

H1: COI is a significant antecedent of attitudes;

H2: COI is a significant antecedent of product beliefs;

H3: Product beliefs are a significant antecedent of attitudes.

Chapter2

Literature Review

Country-of-origin effects and cognitive processing

In the earliest investigation of the COI cognitive-processing link, Johansson et al. (1985) found that consumers with specific product knowledge, and hence high ability to evaluate a specific product, tend to rate products either more or less positively than do subjects with less knowledge. The authors concluded that research on COI effects should account for product experience and other factors affecting prior knowledge of imported goods. Papadopoulos et al. (1990) suggested that consumer perceptions of a given product's COI are based on three components:

(1) cognitions, including knowledge about specific products and brands;

(2) affect, or favorable attitudes about home country goods; and

(3) conations, which are related to ultimate purchase behavior and are equivalent to the standard tripartite attitude model.

Hong and Wyer (1989) investigated the linkage between COI and cognitive processing modes under conditions of both impression formation and comprehension. Their results support the information elaboration hypothesis, which predicts that COI may induce consumers to process other product attribute information more extensively, with COI-inspired affect transferring as a halo to other attributes of the country's product. They also investigated the linkage between the time interval of knowledge about a product's country of origin and information about its specific attributes (Hong and Wyer, 1990). Maheswaran (1994) and Chao (1993) showed that product knowledge and the salience of various product attributes can affect cognitive processing.

One might expect that increased product knowledge would reduce reliance on the country cue, but studies have shown that the opposite tends to ...