Influence of Consumer Affinity toward Foreign Countries on Consumers’ Regulatory Focuses

Abstract

Expanding cross-cultural social interaction regardless of whether it is real or virtual makes consumers become interested in different cultures, thereby increasing the number of consumers with positive attitudes toward foreign countries. This study examines the role of consumer affinity—a feeling of sympathy and attachment to a specific foreign country—in cross-cultural consumer decision-making. Specifically, it investigates the conditions that promote or inhibit consumer affinity for foreign product evaluation from the perspective of construal level theory and regulatory focus theory. A series of experiments clarified that when considering the purchase of a foreign product, consumer affinity caused a psychological proximity between the two countries, which could result in a change in consumers’ construal level and, therefore, a difference in the effective method of a product appeal (promotion-focused vs. prevention-focused). This psychological mechanism will expand the research on effective communication strategies when marketing products or services globally.

Keywords:

• Consumer behavior
• consumer affinity
• regulatory focus theory
• construal level theory

Introduction

A major research area in international marketing focuses on consumers’ disposition toward a foreign country, or country bias. Unlike studies that deal with negative country biases, such as consumer animosity (Klein, Ettenson, and Morris 1998), consumer ethnocentrism (Shimp and Sharma 1987), and the liability of foreignness (Slangen, Beugelsdijk, and Hennart 2011), little is known about the influence of positive country affect and devotion on global business (Nes, Yelkur, and Silkoset 2014). Meanwhile, the development of communication technology, logistics, and lowering barriers against overseas travel makes consumers feel close to different cultures, thereby increasing the number of consumers who have positive attitudes toward foreign countries (Grinstein and Riefler 2015; Grinstein and Wathieu 2012; Terasaki and Perkins 2017). Although the COVID-19 pandemic has restricted global travel and has made stay-at-home restrictions commonplace (Gössling, Scott, and Hall 2021), an increasing number of foreign products continue to be delivered globally, even during the pandemic (Espitia et al. 2021).

In international marketing, consumer affinity, a feeling of sympathy and attachment to a specific country (Oberecker, Riefler, and Diamantopoulos 2008) captures such trends, and it is formed by microscopic factors such as personal experience and preference for a given country (Bernard and Zarrouk-Karoui 2014). Thus, when considering the purchase of a foreign product, consumer affinity may result in psychological proximity or nearness between two countries. This may result in a change in consumers’ construal level and therefore require a change in the product appeal method for greater effectiveness (e.g., promotion-focused vs. prevention-focused). Previous research has shown that high-level construal corresponds to a promotion-focused method, and a low-level construal corresponds to a prevention-focused one (Förster and Higgins 2005).

Therefore, the research objective of this paper was to elucidate communication strategies to effectively connect consumer affinity (Oberecker, Riefler, and Diamantopoulos 2008) to favorable evaluation of the products from a focal country, employing the perspectives of construal level theory (Trope and Liberman 2003) and regulatory focus theory (Higgins 1997). More precisely, the research question investigated in this study clarifies the conditions that promote or inhibit consumer affinity for foreign product evaluation, based on the above two theoretical approaches, and identifies effective communication strategies even for consumers with relatively low consumer affinities.

Although existing research reveals its favorable influence on product evaluation from the focal country (Asseraf and Shoham 2016; Oberecker and Diamantopoulos 2011; Wongtada, Rice, and Bandyopadhyay 2012), these studies do not necessarily incorporate the factors that promote or inhibit the effect of consumer affinity on foreign product evaluation. This is because studies dealing with consumer affinity have not adopted an experimental approach that is effective in addressing these issues. As a result, they do not provide implications for effective communication strategies when developing products and services globally.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, past literature was reviewed to develop a hypothesis. Then, experiments were conducted to investigate the underlying mechanism of how consumer affinity and regulatory focus are connected, employing the theoretical background of construal level theory and regulatory focus theory. Lastly, the implications, limitations, and future research were presented to comprehensively discuss the findings of this paper.

Theoretical development and hypothesis

Consumer affinity

Emotional attachment theory (Bowlby 1979) implies that individuals may feel attached not only to others, but also to a specific referent, such as a place or country (Bernard and Zarrouk-Karoui 2014; Guo, Tu, and Cheng 2018). Consumer affinity is associated with the latter referent, one of the four place-related constructs (country and people images, product images, affinity, and animosity) (Papadopoulos, Banna, and Murphy 2017). Consumer affinity is defined as “a feeling of liking, sympathy, and even attachment toward a specific foreign country that has become an in-group as a result of the consumer’s direct personal experience and/or normative exposure” (Oberecker, Riefler, and Diamantopoulos 2008, 26). This concept is likely to attract increasing attention from researchers as well as policymakers and practitioners because consumer affinity could become an instrument to diminish negative consumer biases against a specific country-of-origin, thereby favorably repositioning the country’s image (Asseraf and Shoham 2017).

Although several past studies have conceptualized consumer affinity with measurement scales (Motsi and Park 2020; Nes, Yelkur, and Silkoset 2014; Oberecker and Diamantopoulos 2011; Wongtada, Rice, and Bandyopadhyay 2012), empirical research on consumer affinity is still at a very early stage (Papadopoulos, Banna, and Murphy 2017), particularly in terms of its prospective antecedents. Except for Bernard and Zarrouk-Karoui (2014), past studies have not necessarily incorporated the qualitative insights emerging from a series of in-depth interviews with consumers, particularly related to the cognitive drivers (lifestyle, culture and cultural similarity, scenery, politics, and economics) and affective drivers (staying abroad, short travel, personal contacts) of consumer affinity (Asseraf and Shoham 2017; Josiassen 2011; Oberecker, Riefler, and Diamantopoulos 2008).

Research in this area has mainly examined the influence of consumer affinity on the evaluation of products from foreign countries (Asseraf and Shoham 2016; Nes, Yelkur, and Silkoset 2014; Papadopoulos, Banna, and Murphy 2017; Wongtada, Rice, and Bandyopadhyay 2012), and services such as tourism and investment in the focal country (Oberecker and Diamantopoulos 2011). Since past research has generally confirmed that consumer affinity acts as an important predictor of the buying behavior associated with products or services from the affinity country (Papadopoulos, Banna, and Murphy 2017), we propose the following hypothesis.

H1: The higher the level of consumer affinity, the higher the consumer’s evaluation of the products from the affinity country.

Although most past research examines either the antecedents or causal results of consumer affinity, only recent studies, such as Cakici and Shukla (2017), examine the moderating role of consumer affinity. Cakici and Shukla (2017) find that country-of-origin misclassification has detrimental effects on buying behavior when consumers have a strong affinity with the misclassified country-of-origin. Further, Guo, Tu, and Cheng (2018) investigate the moderating factors between consumer affinity and the buying behavior of products from an affinity country and find that the positive effect of consumer affinity was higher on product trust in consumers who exhibited strong consumer ethnocentrism than in those who exhibited weaker consumer ethnocentrism.

The next section presents consumer regulatory focus as a prospective moderating factor, with reference to the mechanism of consumers’ psychological distance toward a foreign country.

Psychological distance and consumer’s regulatory focus

Consumer affinity, generally conceptualized as a feeling of sympathy and attachment to the affinity country (Oberecker and Diamantopoulos 2011), may have a specific effect on the influence of foreign products on consumers. The present study examines whether the psychological distance between consumers and foreign countries varies according to the degree of consumer affinity toward the focal country, and whether this makes consumers’ construal level (Trope, Liberman, and Wakslak 2007) different when evaluating foreign products. This is because more distant (closer) stimuli cause people to have higher (lower) levels of construal, regardless of whether the psychological distance is physical, temporal, social, or probabilistic (Alter and Oppenheimer 2008; Trope, Liberman, and Wakslak 2007).

Several previous studies have demonstrated a regulatory focus theory approach that focuses on the compatibility between construal level and regulatory focus (promotion focus vs. prevention focus). Regulatory focus theory accounts for how people approach pleasure and avoid pain in various ways from the perspective of two motivational systems: promotion focus, which is concerned with the presence or absence of positive outcomes, and prevention focus, which is concerned with the presence or absence of negative outcomes (Higgins 1997; Higgins, Nakkawita, and Cornwell 2020). In this context, Pennington and Roese (2003) showed that the farther the subjective or objective time to the goal, the more promotion-focused a person becomes. Further, Liberman and Förster (2008) proposed that prevention-focused people become more motivated as a deadline approaches than promotion-focused people.

As discussed above, previous studies have examined the relationship between temporal distance and regulatory focus, whereas more recent research has dealt with variations in regulatory focus caused by social distance. Park and Morton (2015) discussed the roles of regulatory focus, social distance, and involvement interplay in response to anti-alcohol messages, and Kulkarni and Yuan (2015) examined the effect of information cues unrelated to advertisements on the persuasiveness of advertisement messages, referring to the moderating role of social remoteness.

Most previous studies have dealt with the changes in construal level caused by temporal distance and the associated shift in regulatory focus. However, as foreign products are now widely bought and sold on the Internet in addition to brick-and-mortar stores in many countries, there is a growing need to maintain a psychological distance from foreign countries to explain preferences in buying behavior. Given that consumer affinity is conceptualized as favoritism and attachment to a particular country, consumers with high affinity are thought to be psychologically closer to that foreign country, than consumers with low affinity. As a result, we predict that they will lead to lower levels of construal, and that prevention-focused appeal will be evaluated more favorably than promotion-focused appeal. Conversely, consumers with low consumer affinity are expected to be more psychologically distant from that foreign country than consumers with high affinity. As a result, they will hold a higher level of construal, and promotion-focused appeal will be evaluated more favorably than prevention-focused appeal. Based on the above discussion, we formulate the following hypotheses, and the conceptual frameworks for H1, H2a, and H2b are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Conceptual framework to investigate H1, H2a, and H2b.

H2a: If consumers have high affinity to the product’s country of origin, they evaluate the product with prevention-focused appeal more favorably than the one with promotion-focused appeal.

H2b: If consumers have low affinity to the product’s country of origin, they evaluate the product with promotion-focused appeal more favorably than the one with prevention-focused appeal.

In addition, it may be assumed that the smaller the psychological distance to the target country, the higher the consumer affinity. Although social distance represents the similarity with others or groups (Trope and Liberman 2003), Oberecker and Diamantopoulos (2011) found that more Austrians felt consumer affinity toward Italy and Greece than toward Germany, which has relatively high similarity with Austria, indicating that similarity itself is not a prerequisite for consumer affinity.

In the preliminary survey of the present study, Japanese consumers showed lower affinity to China and Korea, which are highly similar to Japan, than to Western countries, which have low similarity. Based on the above, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H3: The higher the consumer affinity to any foreign country, the smaller the psychological distance to that country becomes.

The relationship shown in both H2a and H2b is assumed to be mediated by psychological distance to the target country. That is, the higher (lower) the consumer affinity to a given foreign country, the smaller (greater) the psychological distance to that country becomes, and the psychological proximity (remoteness) is expected to increase product evaluation only when the product appeals are prevention-focused (promotion-focused). Assuming such a mediation-moderation relationship, we propose the following hypothesis, and the conceptual framework for H3, H4a, and H4b is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Conceptual framework to investigate H3, H4a and H4b.

H4a: The higher the consumer affinity to any given foreign country, the smaller the psychological distance to that country becomes, and the psychological proximity enhances product evaluations only when the product appeal is prevention-focused.

H4b: The lower the consumer affinity to any given foreign country, the greater the psychological distance to that country becomes, and the psychological remoteness enhances product evaluations only when the product appeal is promotion-focused.

In Study 1, two pilot studies are conducted before testing the relationships shown in Figures 1 and 2. Study 2 then examines H1, H2a, and H2b, employing the United States as an affinity country based on the results of Study 1. In Study 3, the target country is changed to France to verify H3, H4a, and H4b, replicating H1, H2a, and H2b. Japanese consumers are chosen as experimental participants because there are few ethnic Japanese consumers who feel “old country passions” (Papadopoulos, Banna, and Murphy 2017) toward these three countries, and their ethnicity as Japanese is considered to work neutrally for the evaluation of products from the chosen affinity countries.

Study 1

Two pilot studies were conducted before each experiment. First, we specified product categories with the least influence from the country-of-origin image on product evaluation. Following Zeugner-Roth, Žabkar, and Diamantopoulos (2015), we selected the U.S., China, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, France, and Singapore from among Japan’s major trading partners. The data used in this study were collected from 104 Japanese consumers on the Internet (52 males, 52 females, M _age = 45.548, SD _age = 13.188). Each product category’s image based on country-of-origin was examined by asking a question (“Please rate the image of each of the following product categories from 7 (very good) to 1 (very bad) based on its country of manufacture”) for the following eight product categories: tablet devices, perfumes, sunscreens, supplements, toothpaste, digital cameras, mouthwash, and air purifiers.

We performed repeated one-way analysis of variance, where the factor was the product category, and the level was the country of manufacture. It revealed that Asian countries except Singapore had lower scores in all product categories; therefore, we excluded Asian countries and reanalyzed the data for the remaining countries. The results showed no difference in country-of-origin images among the U.S., Germany, and France for supplements (F _{(1, 311)} = 1.491, p = .228), mouthwash (F _{(1, 311)} = 1.712, p = .183), and toothpaste (F _{(1, 311)} = 1.989, p = .139).

Next, we measured Japanese consumers’ affinity toward the seven countries using the scale developed by Oberecker and Diamantopoulos (2011) to determine the affinity countries for Studies 2 and 3. Rather than letting subjects choose their favorite affinity country, targeting specific countries could better represent most business situations (Nes, Yelkur, and Silkoset 2014). The data used for the analysis were collected from 104 Japanese consumers through the Internet (52 males, 52 females, M _age = 45.125, SD _age = 13.124). The results showed significantly low scores for China (M _China = 2.302, SD _China = 1.079) and South Korea (M _{South Korea} = 2.559, SD _{South Korea} = 1.464), whereas Taiwan’s score was slightly higher (M _Taiwan = 4.617, SD _Taiwan = 1.129). Moderate values were obtained for the U.S. (M _U.S = 4.144, SD _U.S = 1.013), Germany (M _Germany = 4.393, SD _Germany = 0.857), France (M _France = 4.283, SD _France = 0.973), and Singapore (M _Singapore = 4.466, SD _Singapore = 1.100).

Based on the results above, the United States and France were selected as the target countries for consumer affinity. According to Nes, Yelkur, and Silkoset (2014), these countries were also chosen because “the cultures (not only) have important similarities in the European heritage, but also substantial differences” (776). Moreover, supplements, mouthwashes, and toothpastes emerged as prospective options for the product category, and since mouthwash and toothpaste have dental hygiene in common, we selected mouthwash (Study 2) and supplements (Study 3) as the product categories for the experiments.

Study 2

The purpose of Study 2 was to test hypotheses H1, H2a, and H2b. This study was conducted among 310 consumers who registered for a panel of an Internet research firm (153 males, 157 females, M _age = 45.419, SD _age = 13.625). Based on the pilot studies, mouthwash was selected as the target product category in which the influence of the country-of-origin image on product evaluation was insignificant. “Makes your teeth white and beautiful” (promotion focus) and “prevents mouth ulcers” (prevention focus) were adopted from general mouthwash benefits as product appeals corresponding to the regulatory focus.

Before the main survey, we inspected whether each product appeal corresponded to an assumed regulatory focus. We calculated the index score for the regulatory focus by subtracting the total score of four prevention-focused items (“It is likely to avoid negative consequences,” “It is likely to bring about peace of mind,” “It is likely to prevent failure,” and “It is likely to prevent unfavorable emotions”) from the total score of four promotion-focused items (“It is likely to lead to positive outcomes,” “It is likely to bring about joy,” “It is likely to encourage success,” and “It is likely to promote favorable emotions”). The results of a survey of 223 participants from the consumer panel of an Internet research firm (119 males, 104 females) showed a significant difference between the scores of promotion-focused appeal (“makes teeth white and beautiful”) (M _promotion = .450, SD _promotion = 1.887) and prevention-focused appeal (“prevents mouth ulcers”), (M _prevention =−.304, SD _prevention = 1.553) (t ₍₂₂₁₎ = 3.260, p = .001), confirming that the product appeal was properly manipulated.

Participants were randomly assigned to an image of mouthwash (Figure 3) with a description of the product: “The U.S. company is planning to sell the following mouthwash in Japan. The mouthwash had the following product appeal: makes your teeth white and beautiful/prevents mouth ulcers.” Consumer affinity was measured using seven items from Oberecker and Diamantopoulos (2011) (α= .947), and product evaluation was measured using four items (the product’s appeal, quality, reliability, and trustworthiness) (Zhu and Meyers-Levy 2007). The responses to these items were measured using a seven-point Likert scale (7 = strongly agree to 1 = completely disagree) and averaged to form an evaluation index (α= .918). For the analysis, mean-centered consumer affinity scores were used (Cronbach 1987).

Figure 3. Stimuli of Study 2 (left: promotion focus, right: prevention focus).

All the constructs in the analysis were found to have sufficient internal consistency and convergent validity. A regression analysis was performed with consumer affinity as the independent variable and product evaluation as the dependent variable to clarify the effect of consumer affinity on the evaluation of the products from the U.S. It revealed that the higher the consumer affinity, the higher the evaluation of the product from the affinity country (R² = .216, B = .445, s.e. = .048, t = 9.218, p < .001); therefore, H1 is supported.

Next, to investigate the moderating effect of the regulatory focus, a multiple regression analysis was conducted with product appeals (promotion-focused [= 1] vs. prevention-focused [= 0]), consumer affinity, and their interaction. The F-value was significant at the 0.1% level (F _(3,306) = 33.383, p < .001; R² = .247). The results are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Results of regression analysis.

	Study 2			Study 3
Independent variable	B (s.e.)	t-Value	p-Value	B (s.e.)	t-Value	p-Value
Constant	4.106 (.073)	56.068	< .01	4.132 (.210)	19.705	< .01
Consumer affinity	.588 (.064)	9.221	< .01	.554 (.072)	7.751	< .01
Regulatory focus	−.103 (.104)	−.988	n.s.	−.188 (.113)	−1.665	< .10
Consumer affinity × Regulatory focus	−.321 (.095)	−3.369	< .01	−.184 (.105)	−1.743	< .10
age				−.002 (.004)	−.473	n.s.
gender				−.141 (.113)	−1.244	n.s.
R ^2	.247			.246
F	33.383		< .01	17.854		< .01
n	310			280

Note: The table reports unstandardized betas. Standard errors are shown in parentheses.

The main effect of product appeal was not significant (B =−.103, s.e. = .104, t =−.988, p = .324), whereas the main effect of consumer affinity was significant (B = .588, s.e. = .064, t = 9.221, p < .001). More importantly, a significant interaction between product appeal and consumer affinity was revealed (B = −.321, s.e. = .095, t = − 3.369, p = .001). Following Aiken and West (1991), we performed a simple slope analysis at one standard deviation above and below the mean value of consumer affinity. The results showed that when consumer affinity was high (+1SD), the simple main effect of product appeal was significant (B = −.455, s.e. = .148, t = −3.086, p = .002), and the prevention-focused product appeal was rated more favorably than the promotion-focused product appeal (H2a supported). In contrast, when consumer affinity was low (− 1SD), the simple main effect of product appeal was significant (B = .250, s.e. = .148, t = 1.695, p = .0911), and the promotion-focused product appeals were rated more favorably than the prevention-focused product appeals (H2b supported). The results for H2a and H2b are summarized in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Moderating effect of consumer affinity against product evaluation.

* aff: consumer affinity, pre: prevention-focused product appeal, pro: promotion-focused product appeal.

Thus, Study 2 confirmed the relationship that the higher the level of consumer affinity, the higher the evaluation of the product from the affinity country, and when consumer affinity is high (low), the product with prevention (promotion) appeals was evaluated more favorably.

Study 3

In Study 3, we tested H3, with France as the target country of affinity and skin care supplements as the product category. A total of 280 participants were recruited from a consumer panel of an Internet research firm (133 males, 147 females, M _age = 45.771, SD _age = 14.385). Based on Study 1, skincare supplements were selected as the target product category for the experiment. “Five beauty ingredients moisturize your skin freshly” (promotion focus) and “Five effective ingredients protect your skin from painful cracking dryness” (prevention focus) were adopted from general benefits of skincare supplement as product appeals corresponding to the regulatory focus. A preliminary survey was conducted on 221 consumer panels of an Internet research firm (105 males, 116 females, M _age = 45.041, SD _age = 13.809) using the same method as in Study 2. A significant difference was observed between the scores of “Five beauty ingredients moisturize and refresh your skin” (M _promotion = 1.883, SD _promotion = 2.944) and “Five effective ingredients protect your skin from painful cracking due to dryness” (M _prevention =.191, SD _prevention = 2.101) (t ₍₂₁₉₎ = 6.023, p < .001), confirming that the product appeal was properly manipulated.

The participants were randomly assigned to an image of skincare supplement (Figure 5) with a description of the product: “A French company was planning to sell a skincare supplement in Japan. The supplement has the following product appeals: Five beauty ingredients moisturize and refresh the skin/Five active ingredients protect the skin from painful dryness.”

Figure 5. Stimuli of Study 3 (left: promotion focus, right: prevention focus).

Consumer affinity was measured with seven items from Oberecker and Diamantopoulos (2011) (α= .926), and product evaluation was measured with the same four items from Zhu and Meyers-Levy (2007) (α= .905) used in Study 2; psychological distance was measured with two items, “People in Japan and people in France are basically the same” and “People in Japan and people in France share the same values” (r = .453) by reference to Trope and Liberman (2003) and Liviatan, Trope, and Liberman (2008). Each of these was evaluated on a seven-point Likert scale (7 = strongly agree to 1 = completely disagree). In the analysis, we used averaged indexes and mean-centered values for continuous variables (Cronbach 1987).

Since all the constructs used in the analysis were found to have sufficient internal consistency and convergent validity, we examined the correlation between consumer affinity and psychological distance to France and found r = .613 (t = 12.946, p < .001), confirming that the higher the consumer affinity, the closer the psychological distance to France (H3 supported).

Next, a multiple regression analysis was conducted with product evaluation as the dependent variable; age and gender (male = 0, female = 1) as control variables; and product appeal (promotion-focused [= 1] vs. prevention-focused [= 0]), consumer affinity and their interaction as independent variables. As a result, the F-value was significant at the 0.1% level (F _(5,274) = 17.854, p < .001; R² = .246). The main effect of product appeal was not significant (B = − .188, s.e. = .113, t = − 1.665, p = .097), whereas that of consumer affinity was significant (B = .554, s.e. = .072, t = 7.751, p < .001) (H1 supported).

Furthermore, the interaction of product appeal and consumer affinity became significant (B = −.184, s.e. = .105, t = − 1.743, p = .083). Following Aiken and West (1991), we conducted a simple slope analysis at one standard deviation above and below the mean value of consumer affinity. The results showed that when consumer affinity was high (+1SD), the simple main effect of product appeal was significant (B =−.386, s.e. = .160, t = −2.408, p = .017), and prevention-focused product appeal was rated more favorably than promotion-focused product appeals (H2a supported). In contrast, when consumer affinity was low (−1SD), the simple main effect of product appeal was not significant (B = .010, s.e. = .160, t = .062, p = .951) (H2b not supported) (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Moderating effect of consumer affinity against product evaluation.

* aff: consumer affinity, pre: prevention-focused product appeal, pro: promotion-focused product appeal.

Finally, a mediation–moderation analysis was performed using SPSS PROCESS (model 14; Hayes 2018) with 10,000 bootstrapping iterations to investigate H4a and H4b. The results showed that when the product appeal was prevention-focused, the moderation–mediation effect was significant (B = .211; 95%CI: .0446, .3769) (H4a supported), whereas when it was promotion-focused, it was not significant (B = .005; 95%CI: −.1833, .1938) (H4b not supported). Therefore, the higher the consumer affinity to France, the smaller is the psychological distance to the country, and psychological proximity is expected to increase product evaluation only when the product appeal is prevention-focused.

Discussion

Country-of-origin effects may be derived not only from the beliefs about or cognitions associated with a country, but also from consumers’ feelings and emotions toward the country (Fazli-Salehi et al. 2021). The research question investigated in this study is to clarify the conditions that promote or inhibit consumer affinity for foreign product evaluation. To answer our research question, we conducted a series of studies to elucidate the relationship between consumer affinity and foreign product evaluation by employing the perspectives of construal level theory and regulatory focus theory.

In Study 1, two pilot studies were conducted. The results showed that supplements, mouthwash, and toothpaste were the categories with the least influence of country-of-origin image on foreign product evaluation. In addition, the U.S., Germany, and France were found to be suitable target affinity countries for the experimental setting based on the results of Japanese consumer affinity toward those nations.

Based on the results of Study 1, two regression analyses were conducted in Study 2 to investigate the relationship between consumer affinity and product evaluation by introducing regulatory focus as a moderator. This revealed that the higher the level of consumer affinity, the higher the evaluation of the product from the affinity country, and when consumer affinity was high, the product with prevention appeal was evaluated more favorably. In contrast, when consumer affinity was low, the product with promotional appeal was evaluated more preferably. Thus, the conceptual relationship shown in Figure 1 was empirically confirmed.

In Study 3, we replicated the research model of Study 2 in a different experimental setting, and the results confirmed that the higher the affinity for the focal country, the higher the evaluation of a prevention appeal than a promotion appeal. After confirming the correlation between consumer affinity and psychological distance, the mediation–moderation effect of psychological proximity on foreign product evaluation was investigated through a mediation–moderation analysis. The results showed that when the product appeal was prevention-focused, the mediation–moderation effect was significant, whereas when the product appeal was promotion-focused, the effect was insignificant. This revealed the underlying mechanism of the effect of consumer affinity on foreign product evaluation. Although the present study did not assume the latter results, the direction of the moderation-mediation effect was consistent with the hypothesis of this study.

The present research provides the following theoretical implications. First, we replicated and confirmed the positive influence of consumer affinity on the evaluation of foreign products that past research has generally confirmed (Papadopoulos, Banna, and Murphy 2017). Given that limited or no research deals with Japanese consumer affinity toward Western countries, our replication could contribute to the research area of positive country biases.

Second, we clarified the unexplained relationship between consumer affinity and regulatory focus theory, and proposed an effective marketing communication strategy that matches the degree of consumer affinity, proposing regulatory focus-based product appeals. Given that consumers’ degree of affinity can be regarded as a segmentation base, this finding certainly expands a target group for segmentation (i.e., consumers with low affinity toward the focal country).

Third, the current study verified the underlying mechanism of how consumer affinity and regulatory focus were connected, employing the theoretical background of construal level theory. After the positive correlation between consumer affinity and psychological closeness toward the focal country was detected, a mediation-moderation model confirmed the comprehensive relationships among consumer affinity, psychological distance, and regulatory focus.

The present study has certain managerial implications. When a company expands overseas, its products may get a more favorable response from consumers by appealing to them with a prevention-focused message where people are likely to have a high level of affinity for the country. In line with recent technological advancements, our findings could be more applicable to the development of an effective communication strategy. Modern campaign-targeting tools such as digital ad messaging may make our marketing communication strategy practical if companies identify customers’ past online behavior (Higgins, Nakkawita, and Cornwell 2020). Based on the accumulation of past data, they may be able to predict the level of affinity a customer has for a certain country. Although both the EU and the U.S. are gradually regulating companies’ use of customer information in online advertisements (Cammaerts and Mansell 2020; Christou and Rashid 2021), companies still have room to apply this strategic point of view in practice.

Limitations and future research

As mentioned above, this study provides some important theoretical and practical implications, but there remain some limitations and issues. As past studies that examined the relationship between regulatory focus and construal level have not addressed much of the effects of personal traits, future research might take up other personal dispositions that could influence the relationship between these two theories. The present study dealt with moderate affinity countries as an experimental setting to clarify the fundamental mechanism of how consumer affinity and regulatory focuses are connected. If future research involves low-affinity countries in examining the relationship discussed here, it might be helpful to consider other personal traits, particularly when there have been certain economic or political conflicts among experimentally targeted countries.

In addition, future research can reexamine the hypothesis for which consistent results were not obtained in this study. Unlike Study 2, H2b was not supported by Study 3. This might be partly because the product category of the supplement itself is somewhat preventive rather than promotive. Overall, the results were considered to be consistent with the hypotheses, but further discussion is needed to explain why the results partly differed in each experiment.

Lastly, it might be interesting to conduct a study in the hedonic category, such as coffee and tea. Even though it seems difficult to control the influence of country-of-origin in cross-cultural research, future research can test the robustness of the present mechanism in a different category setting.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 20K13628 and TOBE MAKI Scholarship Foundation Grant Number 18-JD-001.