Country of origin influence on consumers' choice for food products

Docs en anglais | 6 pages | 09-04-2007 | Format : | Note : Non noté

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Résumé

« Despite considerable research effort, country of origin effects are still poorly understood » (Eroglu and Machleit, 2001). Discuss how country of origin may influence consumer choice for food products, detailing the implications for marketers operating within the food industry.

Extract:

Consumers are increasingly confronted with a large variety of product information. Marketers use packaging, branding, advertising to encourage purchase decision, therefore they supply these information to set up consumers' preferences. Globalisation causes that customers are faced with a wide selection of products, food manufacturers should thus differentiate their products. One particular characteristic producers and marketers can differentiate is the Country of Origin (CO). The role of CO images in influencing consumer behaviour is likely to increase in the future. An understanding of the role of CO effects permits formulating marketing strategies because CO is considered as a product attribute such as price. Steenkamp (1999) explained that CO is seen as a stimulus that consumers use to form beliefs concerning product quality for example. All food products have territorial origins: consumers and retailers differentiate products on this basis. Nowadays consumers can notice in agricultural products "A taste of...", these product information are the result of a marketing policy. Marketers have chosen to promote regional speciality food products which provide a regional label under which products may be advertised and sold; for instance the slogan "a taste of Scotland" has been launched in 1972 as a promotional initiative. Consumers are often influenced by these regionally products differentiated due to the renown and the perceived value of these products: examples of products clearly affected by the CO effects are the Italian cheese, the Yorkshire pudding or the French wines. Thus geographic indication can be important to consumers' purchase decisions; as a consequence marketers and researchers need a greater understanding of consumers' perceptions of CO in order to better benefit from these effects. This essay will endeavour to show the reasons of the CO effects for food products. First of all, it seems that there are mainly three theories which explain the CO effects. Yet some aspects of the CO effects remain poorly understood. Ultimately it would appear that CO stays a way to influence consumers' behaviour especially by the mean of the product packaging...

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