The Influence of Country of Origin Cues on Product Evaluation: Evidence from Swiss and German Consumers

: This study aimed to investigate the influence of visual symbols on the perception and evaluation of two fictitious products as well as the effect of demographic characteristics (nationality) on consumers’ evaluations. A sample of 373 participants was split into two groups and two experimental conditions (products with Swiss symbols and products without Swiss symbols). One group of participants rated the packaging without a Swiss flag and the other one rated the same packaging with a Swiss flag. A semantic differential scale and the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) were used to assess attitudes toward the products. Results confirm that there are differences between the two independent groups and that nationality has an effect on product perception and evaluation. Visual symbols such as a country flag can lead to a better product perception and evaluation. Finally, implications for research are discussed.


Introduction
Although the Country of origin (COO) has been widely investigated in the past years, it is still a concern in international marketing (Koschate-Fischer, Diamantopoulos & Oldenkotte, 2012).COO cues play a signi cant r ole i n p roduct e valuation ( Maheswaran & Chen, 2006).According to the cue utilization theory, consumers make their inferences about the quality of a product based on many cues like color, price, packaging, and country of origin or production (Jacoby, Olson & Handdock 1971).us, c ountry o f o rigin symbols also known as "made in" labeling (O´Mara, Cort & Palin, 2011) are used in marketing and branding of products to di erentiate themselves and to associate the products with positive attributes (Brodie & Sharma, 2011).Consumers presume traits of the product based on the stereotypes associated with the country of origin and the experiences with other products of that country (Dagger & Racit, 2011).Consistent with this, research on this topic con rms that many consumers make product evaluation and purchase decisions based on country of origin cues (Miller, 2011).For example, German brands with the "Made in Germany" cue are perceived as positive when evaluating the quality of the products (Alex & Abraham, 2015).However, researchers still di er whether or not COO is used by consumers to judge a product.On the one hand, previous research showed that COO activates country speci c s tereotypes, which are automatic and show a cognitive and a ective impact comparable to a halo-e ect o n t he p roduct ( Herz & D iamantopoulis, 2012).Other research demonstrated that consumers are willing to pay a higher price for a particular product depending on the origin of the traders (Hu & Wang, 2010).O´Mara et al. (2011) also reported that COO serves as a proxy for risk reduction of the purchase in situations where relevant information is missing or unknown.
Opposite to this, a study on fast-consuming products in India showed that COO cues do not have a cognitive use and are even ignored for product evaluation (Alex & Abraham, 2015).Further, Samiee et al. (2005) concluded that consumers do not remember COO as relevant information for product evaluation.Liefeld (2004) proved that consumers do not use the COO as an information cue when making product evaluations, and Balabanis and Diamantopoulos (2008) found that consumers have little knowledge about the country of origin of the products.
e in uence of COO on consumers'evaluations has been investigated in many countries (Sin, Ho & So, 2000;Bailey & Pineres, 1997;Ghazali et al., 2008;Lin & Chen, 2006;Haque et al., 2015;Dagger & Raciti, 2011;Alex & Abraham, 2015).Product di erentiation and labeling with a "made in" symbol have also been discussed in Switzerland for nearly one decade (Bravermann, 2007); however, the Swiss market needs further research.Swiss products have an excellent reputation both at home and abroad.ey are considered to be reliable and of high quality and the economic added value of their Swiss origin is used by Swiss and international companies (Casanova, 2007).According to the results of a survey over 60% of Swiss respondents are ready to pay more than the double for products produced in Switzerland (Bundesamt für Landwirtscha , 2007).
Since there is so much disagreement about whether COO has an e ect or not and there is no much research with the Swiss market, this study aims to extend previous research on COO cue utilization by testing the use of visual symbols on Swiss and German consumers and its in uence on product judgement.Speci cally, the study investigates whether the Swiss ag has an e ect on consumer behavior and product evaluation.
Another important point to be considered is that the products shown in this study are not typical from Switzerland, but just branded with the Swiss ag.Previous studies on COO have used the term as either the origin of the product (the country of production) or the origin of the brand (home country of the brand).Research has con rmed that consumers use both COO de nitions to make inferences about the quality of the product (Johnson, Tian, & Lee, 2016).According to Johnson et al. (2016), the "country of origin t" plays a meaningful role in the evaluation of products.e country of origin t refers to whether the product and brand origin are the same.In the opposite situation where the country of the product and the brand are di erent, then there is no country of origin t.Sangwon, Zachary, and Xin (2009) demonstrated that the country of origin t leads to a more positive evaluation of the product than no t.Products shown in this research are not typical from Switzerland, but just branded with the Swiss ag and therefore with a low COO t.
Consumer knowledge about the product is also an important factor that in uences the COO cues (Chiou, 2003;Mahswaran, 1994).Consumer knowledge refers to the consumers´ experiences related to the product, which has an in uence on product evaluation (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987).Brand familiarity is one of these consumer knowledge dimensions.Being familiar with a brand or product implies that no additional information will be used to evaluate the product.Accordingly, unfamiliar brands will lead to product evaluations based on COO cues (Alex & Abraham, 2015). is study used ctitious and therefore unfamiliar brands and consequently we expect that COO cues will in uence product evaluation.
Previous studies have also demonstrated that demographic variables like age (Bailey & Pineres, 1997;Huddleston et al., 2001), gender (Sharma et al., 1995), the level of education (Insch & McBride, 2004) have an in uence on the COO e ect.According to this, consumers' demographic characteristics may in uence the way they perceive and evaluate products.erefore investigation should focus on the identi cation of further demographic variables that in uence the COO e ect.
Since the variables associated with the evaluation consumers make on a product are diverse, the primary goal of this investigation was to examine the in uence of visual symbols on the perception and evaluation of two ctitious products.Although there is no country of origin t in this study, the authors assume that the COO will have an e ect on product evaluation.Also, the study investigates a further demographic characteristic and its in uence on the COO e ect.e speci c goals were: a) to examine the in uence of COO cues (Swiss ag) on the evaluation (acceptance and quality of the product) of two unfamiliar products with low COO t with Swiss and German consumers and; b) to analyze the e ect of participants' nationality on product evaluation.

Method
Participants e sample consisted of 373 participants (47% men and 53% women) with ages ranging from 18 to 83 (M = 39.03,SD = 14.44).Regarding nationality, (51%) were Swiss, (46%) German and (3%) had another nationality.e participants in our study were recruited using a nonrandom sampling procedure through the research panel Research-Now, social networks (Xing, LinkedIn, and Facebook) and through the online campus of a German distance learning university.

Independent variables
Stimulus materials were developed by a graphic designer and included two products: a rice package and a toothpaste tube (see Figures 1, 2, 3 & 4).e products did not have any speci c brand marks or details that participants could recall to avoid the in uence of existing brands and make them unfamiliar to the participants.e pictures of the products were identical and di ered only in the visual Swiss symbol (Swiss ag).

Dependent variables
To assess participants' attitudes towards the products, the study used two methods.e rst method was the semantic di erential scale, which we administered as described in Bortz and Döring (2005).Eight of the 25 items were adapted to the purpose of this study, and an additional item was added (see Table 1).e scale consists of 26 bipolar adjective pairs.Participants evaluated the products on a 7-point scale.e second method was the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM, see Figure 5), which measures the a ective dimensions valence, arousal, and dominance associated with the products (Morris, 1995).Participants were asked to rate their a ective reaction to the products on a 9-point scale.Both scales are useful for measuring a ective responses and complement each other (verbal vs. nonverbal measurement).It has also been shown that both scales hold the same dimensional structure (Osgood et al., 1957) and are highly correlated (Bradley & Lang, 1994).Furthermore, participants were asked to estimate the price (CHF or EUR), the acceptance and the quality of the products: "How do you estimate the quality of the product?"Participants responded on a 7-point scale with endpoints labeled very bad/very good, "Do you know the product?, " "Have you already bought and consumed the product?, " "Would you buy and consume the product?".ey also rated how ecologically friendly the product is (7-point scale with the point labels very little and very strong), how the price-quality relationship is and if the products meet their expectations; both items on a 7-point scale with the labels very bad/very good.

Demographic variables
Participants reported background information like gender, age, place of residence and nationality (these two variables were limited to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other).

Procedure
e questionnaire was rst pretested by administering it to a Swiss sample (N = 33).e results of the pretest showed that the selected items were appropriate for the purpose of the study.Moreover, the pretest con rmed the results of past studies (Osgood et al., 1957;Bradley & Lang, 1994).According to factor analyses, the items of both scales loaded into similar factors.No changes were needed a er pretesting.
e nal questionnaire was developed with SoSci Survey (online tool), which automatically randomized participants into two conditions (products with ag/products without ag).Participants were assigned to one of the two experimental conditions (products with the Swiss symbol or products without the Swiss symbol).e rst condition included Figures 2 and 4, the second condition included Figures 1 and 3. e link was distributed over 11 days on ResearchNow, social networks and the online campus of a German distance learning university.Participants then completed the questionnaire.

Results
Reliability A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to test for normality on the main dependent variables for both products.e percentage on the semantic di erential D (373) = 0.42, p < .05,and the SAM D (373) = 3.77, p < .05,were both signi cantly non-normal.Because of this, non-parametric tests were used to analyze the data.Both scales had good reliabilities SAM α = .75SemDi α = .90.

Factor Analysis
Initially, a principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted on the 26 semantic di erential items for both products to assess dimensionality of the constructs and identify unreliable items.e Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure con rmed the sampling adequacy for the analysis .80 for the rice and .75 for the toothpaste, which is above the recommended value of .6. e Bartlett's test of sphericity was signi cant for both products: rice χ2 (66) = 1532.83,p < .01 and toothpaste χ2 (66) = 1525.44,p < .01. ese results con rmed that the correlations between the adjectives were strong enough for PCA. e analyses and eigenvalues revealed that three components were the best option for the nal analysis because a) it explained 63% of the variance and b) of its previous theoretical and research support.Usually, the list of adjective pairs loads onto three factors similar to the dimensions of the SAM (pleasure, arousal, and dominance) (Osgood et al., 1957).To increase the reliability of the scales, some adjectives were removed.Tables 2 and 3 show the factor loadings a er rotation.Factor one represents the dimension pleasure, factor two arousal, and factor three dominance.

Main Analyses
Di erences between the groups ere was a signi cant association between the type of visual stimuli (with or without Swiss ag) and the emotions associated with both products.Results of SAM ratings show signi cant di erences for the rice in the arousal dimension χ² (1) = 4.86, p < .05. Results for the toothpaste indicate a signi cant di erence for the dimension pleasure χ² (1) = 3.97, p = .05and the dimension dominance χ² (1) = 3.98, p = .05.Additionally, the item "How ecologically friendly is the product?" revealed a signi cant di erence for both products between the groups χ² (1) = 4.18, p = .05. e results of the semantic di erential show only signi cant di erences between the groups for the toothpaste product.ere were signicant di erences for factor one of the semantic di erential (pleasure) χ² (1) = 4.08, p < .05.

Discussion
e present study investigated the in uence of visual symbols on product evaluation using two di erent methods: a semantic di erential and the self-assessment manikin.e results reveal di erences between the groups.us, the products with the Swiss ag were associated with more positive emotions (pleasure, arousal, and dominance) as compared to the products without the Swiss ag.Furthermore, both products with the Swiss ag were rated as more eco-friendly as compared to the products without the Swiss ag. is corroborated Jacoby´s et al. (1971) cue utilization theory, which postulates that consumers make deductions about the quality of the product based on cues like a ag. is is also consistent with previous research (Alex & Abraham, 2015), which clearly indicates that consumers perceived certain brands with the "made in" label cue as positive when evaluating the product.It is important to mention that the products with the Swiss ag were associated with more positive emotions although the COO t low was.According to Sangwon, Zachary, & Xin (2009), the country of origin t leads to a more positive evaluation of the product than no t.Opposite to the ndings of (Sangwon, Zachary, & Xin, 2009), in this study participants made positive associations (positive emotions or described products as eco-friendly) although the country of production and the country of origin (low COO t) were di erent.Further research is needed to follow up these results and see if products with a high COO t (like Swiss watches or Swiss chocolates) will lead to more and stronger positive associations with the products.
A social psychological explanation for these results is the activation of speci c stereotypes, which are automatically associated with the products when participants see the Swiss ag.e activation of country related stereotypes seems to have an impact comparable to a haloe ect on the product.e halo-e ect is that one stereotype associated with the country (i.e.good quality) will overlap all other attributes of the product.Studies on this topic are consistent with this assumption (Herz & Diamantopoulis 2012).
Moreover, the results showed that the participant's nationality inuenced the e ect of the Swiss ag on the product evaluation.Swiss nationality increased the positive evaluations compared to other nationalities.It seems that national pride and familiarity with the Swiss ag cue increases the e ect. is is not surprising because in Switzerland, almost every business uses a Swiss symbol cue on the products and that Swiss people prefer products from their home country (Bundesamt für Landwirtscha , 2007).Marketing experts are convinced of this fact and consider it an e ective "unwritten law".Further research should investigate the e ect of Swiss national pride on Swiss product evaluation.It was also observed that the product rice obtained more signi cant e ects than the toothpaste.e data indicates that Swiss participants believed to have already bought and consumed the ctitious rice. is could explain why rice was preferred and obtained more positive evaluations as compared to the toothpaste.A psychological explanation for this is the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973).A better and quicker availability of the product (I have already bought and consumed the product) is considered as own information.erefore, the recipient has the feeling that he is more familiar with the product and classi es it as a relevant and highquality one.Research about consumer knowledge about the product (i.e.brand familiarity) implies that such consumer knowledge will lead to an evaluation of the product without additional information like CCO cues (Alex & Abraham, 2015).Although both products were completely ctitious, Swiss participants believed to have bought and consumed the rice previously, which in turn lead to a better evaluation of the product.
A follow up to investigate the e ect of other nationalities and the consumer knowledge about the product will be interesting.Further research should investigate which processes lead to a positive association with the product.Is it due to the activation of country stereotypes or due to the national identity?
Investigating how consumers´ make purchase decisions and what in uences their attitudes towards a product is very important for understanding and predicting consumers´ behavior.e results of this study cannot be generalized, but they de nitively expand and support previous knowledge on COO cues and their in uence on product perception and evaluation as well as the in uence of demographic characteristics on COO e ect.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Rice package without Swiss symbol

Table 1
Semantic di erential with 26 bipolar adjective pairs

Table 2
Factor loadings of the adjective pairs for the product Rice

Table 3
Factor loadings of the adjective pairs for the product Toothpaste Tube

Table 4
E ects of nationality on product evaluation(Sem.Di )

Table 5
E ects of nationality on product evaluation (SAM)