Country-of-origin Effects on Consumer Brand Perception of Familiar vs. Unfamiliar Brands of Technological Complex Products in a Developed Market Setting

The purpose of this paper is to extend the knowledge of the effect of brand familiarity on how Country of Origin influences brand perception in a developed country. We used a 2x2 factorial experimental design to test the effects of COO with two levels of sourcing location – Czech Republic and Romania- on a technological complex product (cars), represented by 2 brands, one familiar brand (Skoda) and one unfamiliar brand (Dacia). Data were collected using a questionnaire which was administered to respondents, with diversified demographic characteristics, in 4 large cities in Denmark with 205 usable questionnaires. We used ANOVA to test our hypotheses. The findings suggest that country of origin has a significant positive impact on the consumers’ perception of the Czech manufactured Skoda Fabia, representing the familiar brand, and a significant negative impact on the consumers’ perception of the Romanian manufactured Dacia Sandero, representing the unfamiliar brand.