In the years 2010–2012 in Italy, the 3F sectors, fashion, food and furniture, marked a +5% (FinanciaLounge, 2014). To some extent, this rise may rely on the strong Made in Italy label that is historically “perceived by consumers as being associated with “true” luxury goods” (Hoffmann & Coste-Manière, 2014) and, in order to create nostalgia and credibility for their brands, many firms try to correlate their offer to the heritage of the Country of Origin (Fionda & Moore, 2009). In the academic literature, Country of Origin is one of the most analyzed method to enhance a firm’s competitive advantage, mainly thanks to its ability to increase positive perceptions about firms’ products in the customers’ mind (Agrawal & Kamakura, 1999; Aiello et al., 2009). Moreover, Country of Origin is defined as “the effect rooted in consumers’ images of the quality of specific products marketed by firms associated with a country of origin” (Verlegh, Steenkamp, & Meulenberg, 2005, p. 127). COO works as an information cue that covers the attitudes toward the products evaluation. In particular, COO influences customers’ brand awareness, perceived quality and brand associations depending on the country image, and, as a consequence, the overall brand equity (Agrawal & Kamakura, 1999; Chao, 1998; Magnusson, Westjohn, & Zdravkovic, 2011). For instance, some authors showed a positive bias (i.e. increased willingness to pay a higher price) toward products from some countries relative to others (Drozdenko & Jensen, 2009). For this reason, just few countries can benefit from their image and awareness in order to take advantage from the Country of Origin effect, such as Italy. Furthermore, besides the Country image, scholars found that the COO effect can vary depending on the product category “For a given category, country-of-origin credibility is high when consumers have a favorable image of the country’s products in that category, and low when the product–country image is unfavorable” (Verlegh et al., 2005, p. 129). In this perspective, firms should identify solutions to convey positive associations about their supply to customers (Phau & Leng, 2008). The relevance of this issue is confirmed by a lot of studies, where some communication tools related to COO effect are already investigated, like brand identification system, packaging, advertising copy and celebrity endorsement (Agrawal & Kamakura, 1999; Usunier, 2011). Actually, a lot of Italian firms use product placement exploiting the “Made in Italy” effect, where placement is here intended as the paid inclusion of branded products within mass media programming (Karrh, 1998). Just few examples are Piaggio with Vespa in Roman Holiday, Bacardi with Martini in James Bond and Ocean’s series, Riva Yacht with Aquarama in James Bond series and The Great Beauty, and Prada in The devil wears Prada. Many reasons are explaining such a great use of product placement. On one hand, in the last decade we have assisted to the fragmentation of media and their audience, and on the other one, consumers are more and more skeptical towards traditional benefit advertising and they use technology to avoid commercials (Hackley & Tiwsakul, 2006; Lehu & Bressoud, 2009). Integrating brands casually but notably in a media content appears to be an interesting alternative to traditional marketing communication tools (D’Astous & Chartier, 2000). Furthermore, product placement’s acceptance and its possibly effectiveness, as well as country of origin effect, is likely to vary across product category (Gupta & Gould, 1997; Russell, 1998). Moreover, we can assume that product placement impact on the overall brand equity in a positive way (Aaker, 1997; Miniero, Chizzoli, & Pate, 2013) as it is an effective tool that can increase brand awareness and develop favorable relations with customers (Chan, 2012). In particular, studies on product placement confirm an increased top-of-mind-awareness and unaided awareness of placed brands (Cholinski, 2012). Finally, even if studies on product integration effect on attitude toward placed brands are not univocal, a lot of publications present positive or at the very least neutral product placement influence on brand attitude (Russell, 2002). For instance, according to Miniero et al. (2013), product placement is a nice way to achieve communication objectives and it can be used to influence consumers’ attitude and intention to buy a specific brand (Miniero et al., 2013). To our knowledge, despite a huge employment of product placement in practice and a lot of contributions in the academic theory about these two topics, there is a gap in the literature about the relationship between the COO effect and the use of this communication tool from a practitioners’ perspective. On the contrary, from a consumers’ perspective, Tsai and Lu’s research find out a positive correlation between the use of product placement and the country image (Tsai & Lu, 2012). Moreover, due to the several studies concerning the positive impact of product placement and country of origin on brand equity, we are allowed to suppose that professionals can synergistically take advantage from both. Starting from Karrh’s studies on the practitioners’ perspective about product placement, our research aspires to draw any analogy and difference between Karrh’s findings and the Italian firm’s perceptions (Karrh, McKee, & Pardun, 2003; Karrh, 1995, 1998). Particularly, we aim to interview companies that belong to sectors where Made in Italy represents a key competitive component. In addition, our study attempts to explore if and how independent Italian firms exploit country of origin effect in their product placement in order to increase their brand equity. To answer our research questions, we could properly use the case study method (Yin, 2009). This qualitative methodology is very useful to explore unanticipated empirical discoveries (Eisenhardt, 1989). Our case study protocol will provide the analysis of three different data sources. In the first stage of our research, we will examine audio-visual materials, such as film, videotapes, websites and social media, to collect data in an unobtrusive method. In the second stage, we will go through public documents, newspapers and recent academic literature to understand trend topics on product placement and COO and to arrange guidelines suitable for the interviews. In the third ones, we will conduct in-depth face-to-face and semi-structured interviews with key figures of Made in Italy firms that integrated product placement in their communication mix at least once. More in details, interviews will be recorded and transcribed to ensure the completeness of the information gathered. Through the triangulation of these methods and sources we will achieve a richer and deeper data collection and we will also make the case study more detailed (Creswell, 2009). Although our research is still in progress, we expect to extend Karrh’s findings about product placement. More in details, we would like to focus our attention upon the integration between COO and product placement and we try to highlight any key element that can explain how to manage this relationship in order to increase brand equity.

The paper analyses the effect of Country Related Product Image (CRPI), as Country of Origin construct, and Country Product Familiarity (CPF) on retailers’ Intention to Buy (INTB). Despite the relevance and richness of the country-of-origin (COO) research, this body of literature is mainly based on investigating purchasing behaviours of consumers rather than professional buyers. Therefore, the effect that this construct exerts on retail buyers requires further understanding. Moreover, the study contributes to the literature by testing the impact of CRPI, and its multidimensional nature, jointly with CPF. A cross product analysis is considered to verify whether these effects on retailers’ INTB change in relation to specific product categories. The research hypotheses are tested by conducting a survey on a sample of 257 Chinese retail buyers and considering two different Italian product categories: shoes, that is a traditional fashion sensitive product, and ceramic tiles, that is a less fashion-based product whose technical attributes are more prominent for buyers’ evaluations. Results show that 1) the CRPI is a multidimensional construct that influences the intention of Chinese retail buyers to buy Italian products; 2) when CPF is considered, the impact of CRPI dimensions on intention to buy decreases; 3) the joint effect of CRPI dimensions and CPF on retailers’ INTB varies according to the product considered. Theoretical and managerial implications are derived.

Purpose: It has been suggested that the most potent form of the country-of-origin effect is derived from a country having a perceived specialization in a particular product category. By subjecting a novel conceptualization of how products and places form images in conjunction to experimental trial the evaluative pertinence of different facets of interrelation between country image and product categories is examined. Design/Methodology/Approach: A psychometric test-series, featuring a large number of brands from various product categories and countries was conducted. The results were subjected to structural equation modeling using a partial least squares approach. Findings: The findings suggest that the country-of-origin effect can be thought of as being derived simultaneously from several different image constructs, ranging from general to category-specific. These images generate country-of-origin effects in aggregation and the evaluative influence increases with the degree of specificity of how the image construct applies to a specific evaluation situation. Originality/Value: The present study represents an attempt to discern the relative size of the country-of-origin effects derived from different facets of the relationship between a country image and product categories. The results provide a tentative answer to the question of just how much product categories matter in the context of the country-of-origin effect.

The limited available empirical evidence indicates that consumer ethnocentrism does not have a uniform effect on consumer buying (e.g., Klein, Ettenson & Morris 1998; Suh & Kwon 2002). The paper comes to address this gap by investigating the inconsistency of ethnocentric behaviours and the factors underlying such inconsistencies. More specifically, brand, product category and country of origin (COO) effects are examined for their impact on behavioural consumer ethnocentric bias. Contrary to the main stream of research in this area, which concentrates on general attitudes towards the products or buying intentions (e.g., Balabanis & Diamantopoulos 2004; Poon et al. 2010; Sharma etal. 1995; Shimp & Sharma 1987; Verlegh 2007; Wang & Chen 2004) this paper focuses on behavioural outcomes of consumer ethnocentrism. In addition, it adopts a more focused approach and examines the impact of consumer ethnocentrism on the purchase of specific brands, rather than the impact of consumer ethnocentrism on general product categorisations or simple foreigndomestic product dichotomies. Hypotheses are developed to explain observed differences in the behavioural effects of consumer ethnocentrism. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 468 US consumers involving purchases in 10 product categories, 432 brands and 22 countries of origin. Results confirm that product category is an important determinant of the behavioural effects of consumer ethnocentrism. Consumer ethnocentrism was found to have an impact on the purchases of the most expensive product categories rather than the frequently purchase convenient items. There is also some limited evidence regarding the moderating role of globalness of brands on the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and purchase behaviour. The cultural proximity of the country of origin of foreign brands was found to have no effect on the purchasing behaviour of ethnocentric consumers.

This paper presents a research study into urban adult Chinese consumers’ preferences in China with an analysis of the literature on country of origin effects on consumer brand preferences. The study implemented a mixed methods approach. Analysis of quantitative and qualitative data with results and conclusions are given.

This study was to observe how globalization has transformed the attitudes and behaviors of consumers especially in the emerging economy environment such as Malaysia. The aim of this article is to identify the differences in consumers’ product preference for products made in 4 different countries – Japan, Korea, Malaysia and China. Further, this article also aims to analyze how consumers’ ethnocentrism affects product preference as well as how the effect of ethnocentrism varies across products from different countries of origin and product involvement levels. Information for consumers’ product preference was collected through a structured questionnaire from the Malaysian consumers. Concentrating on 2 product categories from 4 different countries, the questions in the questionnaire particularly focused on three different levels of analysis; in addition, CETSCALE was used to measure consumer ethnocentrism. Finally, the hypotheses were tested using ANOVA and t-test statistics, etc. The results provided support for all of the hypotheses, thereby revealing the presence of significant differences in consumer product preference, which is engendered by country of origin, consumer ethnocentrism and product involvement level effect. The research results here have implications for future studies on the effects of country of origin and consumers’ ethnocentrism in developing countries. Moreover, the results also contributed to the validation of CETSCALE in a culturally diversified environment.