When being international is worth it: The effect of a retail brand’s international presence on consumer attitudes

Abstract

A number of academic studies have investigated the "country-of-origin effect", i.e., the influence of a product’s country of origin on the attitudes of consumers. It is known that countries with a higher level of socioeconomic development generate more favorable attitudes towards their goods, and that this influence is moderated by the degree of consumer involvement with the product category. Most previous studies have investigated mainly tangible products, however, this study examines the country-of-origin effect for services using an unexplored and distinct approach: the presence of a brand in various cities across the world as an advertising appeal, without explicitly mentioning the country of origin. Specifically, we create a scenario in which two new retail brands in product categories with low and high consumer involvement are established in Brazil, and the presence of these products in cities of developed countries (vs emerging) is mentioned. The results show that their presence in developed (vs emerging) cities has a more positive effect on purchasing intent, attitudes as well as the perceived success for the high-involvement category (clothing store), when compared to the low-involvement category (supermarket). This study contributes to the marketing literature by demonstrating that presence in developed cities can have the same effect on consumer attitudes as the communication of the country of origin, and that this effect is moderated by the degree of consumer involvement with a category