Foreign Branding and Its Effects on Product Perceptions and Attitudes: A Replication and Extension in A Multicultural Setting

Abstract

A recent contribution to research on country-of-origin (COO) effects on product evaluations was made by Leclerc, Schmitt and Dube-Riox (1994) who found that foreign branding - spelling out or pronouncing a brand name in a foreign language - influences consumers’ perceptions and attitudes. This study attempted to replicate and extend their findings using similar stimuli and 266 undergraduate students (146 male, 120 female) from a major Canadian university.

Only partial support was found for a foreign branding effect, though there were significant gender effects, e.g. with respect to liking for the brand name. Overall, the findings suggest that while foreign branding-affects product evaluations more than COO, the uni-cultural or multi-cultural nature of the research context is influential in determining which brands are seen as ‘foreign’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mrugank V. Thakor

Mrugank V. Thakor, (Ph.D., Indiana University, Bloomington) is an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing at Concordia University. His work has been published in the Journal of Consumer Marketing, the Journal of International Consumer Marketing, Asia Pacific Advances in Consumer Research, and has made presentations at numerous conferences.

Barney G. Pacheco

Barney Pacheco (MSc Administration, Concordia University) was the recipient of a CIDA sponsored graduate study scholarship in 1993. He is currently employed as an assistant lecturer in the Department of Management Studies at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad.