Based on the Stereotype Content Model and the credibility and persuasion literature, this study examines the influence of COO on advertising claim credibility and purchase intentions. A set of hypotheses were developed and tested with an experimental design on a British sample of consumers.

Building on communication accommodation theory, we examine the effect of language style matching – the degree to which the language style of a response matches the language style of a relevant negative review – on prospective customers’ attitudes toward firms and firms’ sales performance, and the moderating effect of firms’ overall ratings.

Understanding the richness and complexity of consumers’ memory structures for a country is important for governments, tourist boards, investment promotion agencies, cultural institutes, exporter associations, Ministries of Foreign Affairs and NGOs in order to increase tourism, exports, inward investment, etc. The image of the country is a key asset that, beyond its symbolic value to the pride and confidence of a nation, has an impact on the welfare and the economic development. Understanding and specifying which levers have a disproportionate effect on generic county evaluations and country image perception is invaluable to both practitioners and academics. Associative network analysis can be helpful to identify the key levers that shape a country’s image. While a number of studies conceptualise brand image from an associative network perspective, based on cognitive psychology, only a few researchers (Henderson, Iacobucci, & Calder 1998; Teichert, & Schöntag 2010) combine this psychological approach with a network analysis perspective applying it at the product brand level. The use of such a combined approach offers certain advantages and more informed insights of image concepts in comparison to a mono-method perspective. This research uses the combined methodology to examine country image associations, and offer new insights on the construct of country image, and on the future development of a more customised approach to the country image measures.