The shift from manufacturing to brand origin: suggestions for improving COO relevance

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to comment on Magnusson et al.'s paper. Rather than entering into the COO (country of origin) relevance debate, the author observes the shift from manufacturing to brand origin and outline consequences for future COO research by taking into account linguistic aspects of brand names. Design/methodology/approach -This paper documents the issue of brand origin recognition accuracy (BORA, a central theme in Magnusson et al.'s paper) and the progressive replacement of COO and COM (country of manufacture) by COB (country of brand). Linguistic cues lead to both incorrect and correct classification of brands in terms of their national origin, which the author subsumes in four ideal-typical situations, by taking into account company intention to manipulate origin information or not. The author then outlines factors which cause and moderate incorrect versus correct classification, especially brand size, corporate vs product names, and linguistic devices. Findings -A framework is developed crossing causes of incorrect versus correct classification with company strategic branding intents. Suggestions are provided for future research combining linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of BORA. Practical implications -Companies willing to build on the origin and favorability of their brand names should deploy a deliberate naming strategy that is expressed in the textual part, as well as in the visual part (i.e. brand name fonts, logo, packaging) and the accompanying marketing communications, especially advertising copy. Originality/value -This paper takes distance from the raging debate on the relevance of COO research, and suggests to deepen the understanding of BORA. This is done by looking at causes and moderating variables of BORA, and taking into account linguistic aspects of strategic branding in the global market.

Factors Influencing Importance of Country of Brand and Country of Manufacturing in Consumer Product Evaluation

“…Later, Usunier (2011) endorsed the importance of origin information by consumers and outlined that this importance is experiencing a shift from COO and COM to COB. But, it is not easy to disregard the importance of COM.…”

“…Over the time, the scope of COO research has become more complex with increased number of studies and constantly changing nature of globalization. As an intersection construct (Usunier, 2011), COO has alignments with other concepts like countries, products, and consumers (Usunier, 2011). COO has been highly researched as a quality cue for product evaluation (Baughn and Yaprak, 1993;Chao, 1993;Erickson et al, 1984;Han, 1989;Han and Terpstra, 1988;Wyer, 1989, 1990;Johansson, 1989;Papadopoulous et al, 1988Papadopoulous et al, , 1990Parameswaran and Yaprak, 1987;Yaprak and Parameswaran, 1986).…”

Products, Brands and Countries: Country-ofBrand (COB) and Product-of-Country (POC) Constructs in Country-of-Origin Research

“…Consumers still perceive product cues related to origin but manufacturing origin has become largely irrelevant (Samiee et al, 2005;Usunier, 2006;Samiee, 2011), and at the same time brands have progressively taken the lead in suggesting product origin. Consumers do not need to spend much effort since a brand is clearly displayed and it is a visually salient cue (Usunier, 2011). It is difficult to realisti-cally attribute the production of a particular product to a single country.…”

“…COO as image of actual manufacturing origin based on "made-in" labels no longer holds (Usunier, 2011;Magnusson et al, 2011b). Given the rise of global branding and corporations' use of multiple countries for sourcing components, manufacturing and assembling products (Johansson and Nebenzahl, 1986;Han and Terpstra, 1988;Häubl, 1996), "CO has essentially lost its validity as an important issue with a managerial relevance" (Samiee, 2011, p.473).…”

“…COB, in this sense, represents the consideration of the country a brand is associated with and therefore can be used as the construct for an examination of brand origin effects. Usunier (2011) used "the progressive replacement of COO and COM by COB" as the subtitle in his paper but preferred to use BO afterwards for the origins of brands.…”