Foreign brand names in an emerging market: Implicit country-of-origin perceptions, consumer ethnocentrism, and environmentalism

Abstract

This article investigates consumer response to brand name in a foreign language for a low involvement product. Foreign Language Display theory and country-of-origin (COO) concepts combine to suggest that brand name implicitly calls up socio-cultural impressions, and perceptions of product quality. A consumer survey in Thailand investigated fabric softener brand names in English, French, Hungarian, and Thai, obtaining the common COO quality ordering (English, French, Hungarian). Consumer ethnocentrism raised the Thai brand name to the level of the French name. Greenness is also becoming an important aspect of country image nowadays, and consumer environmentalism had an impact on quality perceptions.