来源国形象、消费者偏见与中国品牌跨国营销——中国电子产品在美国的品牌来源国效应检验

来源国效应对一国产品的海外销售产生着重要影响。本文以在美国销售的中国H公司运动手表作为被试商品,在606份有效样本基础上,通过多元线性回归验证了中国品牌电子产品在美国的来源国效应。通过与其他七个国家进行对比,本文发现,虽然中国在美国消费者心目中的产品国家形象较为正面,但相对中国经济地位和产品质量而言,美国消费者对中国电子产品和中国品牌的“来源国偏见”普遍存在,“Made in China”目前仍是中国品牌在美国营销的不利因素。在以往研究的基础上,本文将来源国效应中的产品国家形象划分为整体绩效形象、整体制度形象和产品类属形象,在此基础上检验了多个消费者因素对来源国效应的调节作用,首次检验了消费者网购依赖度对消费者购买倾向的影响,并且发现消费者产品知识负向调节来源国效应,这一结论可以导出明确的管理启示。本文结论进一步深化了来源国效应相关研究,弥补了发展中国家逆向拓展发达国家市场时来源国效应研究的不足。

Country Image,Consumers’ Bias and Cross-border Marketing of Chinese Brands:An Empirical Research on Country-of-origin Effect of Chinese Consumer Electronics Brands in the United States

Based on 606 valid samples,the sports watch brand‘H’from China is used as the subject to verify the country of origin effect of Chinese electronics brands in the United States through multiple linear regression.On the basis of previous studies,this paper classifies the product country image into three levels:overall performance image,overall system image and product category image.Based on this,the paper examines the evaluation of American consumers on the product country image of China in recent years,and finds that American consumers prejudice on China s electronic products and Chinese brands is obvious,“made in China”is still the adverse factor when Chinese brands try marketing in the United States at present.The result shows that country-of-origin effect of Chinese electronics brands in US exists exactly.And then this paper examines the moderating effect of multiple consumer factors on the country-of-origin effect.It is the first time to examine the impact of consumer online shopping dependence on consumer purchase intention.It is also found that consumers product knowledge negatively regulates the country-of-origin effect.This conclusion can lead to clear management implications.The results show that the image evaluation of the country of origin,consumers product knowledge and consumers dependence on online shopping are positively correlated with American consumers purchasing tendency towards Chinese sports watches.This shows that country of origin effect plays a significant role in American consumers purchase of Chinese brand electronics products.The more important finding of this paper is that consumers product knowledge has obvious negative regulation effect on country of origin effect.Among consumers who keep the same evaluation scale on China s image,the more knowledgeable the consumers,the lower their purchasing willingness on Chinese brands.This shows that when the country image is not so ideal,consumers product knowledge can reduce the negative effect of“country-of-origin bias”.For consumers with insufficient product knowledge,improving the country-of-origin image can play a good role in sales promotion.This means that when the product country image is relatively negative,consumers product knowledge helps to eliminate the“country-of-origin bias”.At the same time,when China s consumer electronics industry has not yet established a strong brand influence and brand reputation in the United States,the improvement of national image can hardly improve consumers purchase intention to a large extent.The conclusion of this paper further deepens the research on the source country effect,and makes up for the shortage of the research on the source country effect when developing countries reverse expand the developed country market.At present,our state need to deepen reform in an all-round way and shape a good national image of maintaining competition,civilization and opening up,to strengthen the pioneering and linkage effects of leading brands and establish a positive image of“made in China”.For enterprises,in addition to constantly improving their product quality and brand awareness,they can also take a series of measures to deal with consumer prejudice against Chinese products and reduce the adverse impact of the country-of-origin effect.Specifically,firms exploiting foreign market can take measures such as temporarily weakening the home country information,improving the international image of the brand,and taking differentiated marketing strategies for the market segments.