COUNTRY OF ORIGIN IMAGE, BRAND, PRICE AND FAMILIARITY EFFECTS ON CONSUMERS’ SUBJECTIVE EVALUATIONS AND PURCHASE INTENTION Onur İZMİR

Introduction Consumers face lots of brands in the market. Decision making process is getting harder and harder. Consumers rely on some certain set of tools in the evaluation of the products to decide whether to buy or not.

Definition of COO There are other certain definitions made in the literature by Bilkey and Nes (1982)- production or assembly place; Wang and Lamb (1983)- consumer's abstract barriers derived from their prejudices about the imported country; Johansson, Douglas and Nokata (1985)- head quarters of the product or brand where the marketing activities take place; Han and Terpstra (1988)- "made in" labels; Thakor and Kohli (1996)- the country with which the consumer associates the product; Jo et. al. (2003)- the country where the product is designed and produced.

Literature Analysis Consumers consider on some certain elements (Kotler, 2003:60-74) such as extrinsic cues: country of origin image, brand, price, store information; and intrinsic cues: smell, taste, appearance, durability, design etc. (Han & Terpstra, 1988; Dodds et. al., 1991; Wall, Liefeld & Heslop, 1991 and Chao, 1998).

Literature Analysis Coo affects consumers product evaluations and purchase intention (Nagashima, 1970; Han, 1990).

Literature Analysis Evaluations of consumers regarding a product based on whether cognitive, affective or normative approaches or the combination of thereof are expected to lead purchase intention (Verlegh & Steenkamp, 1999).

Literature Analysis Product evaluations and purchase intention are also affected by such elements as brand and price perceptions of consumers regarding a product (Ahmed et. al., 2004).

Method of the Study From Japanese automobile industry, two representative brands, Toyota and Honda, are selected from C-segment for the research. Along with country of origin image, brand, price and familiarity variables are put to analysis within the same model. A questionnaire based on the reliable and valid scales are presented to the respondents. Application of the research is handled in Turkey.

Method of the Study Aim of the Research The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of country of origin image, along with other vital variables in the decision making process namely brand and price perceptions and familiarity, on product evaluation and purchase intention.

Method of the Study Hypotheses and the Proposed Model H1: Familiarity positively affects country of origin image. H2: Familiarity positively affects product evaluation. H3: Familiarity positively affects purchase intention. H4: Country of origin positively affects product evaluation. H5: Country of origin positively affects purchase intention.

Method of the Study Hypotheses and the Proposed Model H6: Brand perception positively affects country of origin image. H7: Brand perception positively affects product evaluation. H8: Brand perception positively affects purchase intention. H9: Price perception negatively affects product evaluation. H10: Price perception negatively affects purchase intention. H11: Product evaluation positively affects purchase intention.

Method of the Study Proposed Model

Method of the Study Research Method Based on the extrinsic cues (price and brand) and intrinsic cues (psychical properties of the automobiles such as segment, maximum speed, horse power, average gas consumption and engine capacity), automobile models to be used in this study have been identified by the click through rates obtained from Google Trends, Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, which are classified under segment C.

Method of the Study Sampling Procedure Respondents were chosen between the age groups 18-60 to determine the overall perceptions of Turkish consumers who belong to different income levels, education and job categories. According to records of TUIK (Turkish Statistical Institution), the population of Turkey is 78.741.053. Between the age groups 18-60, the population is almost 44 million which consists of the population of the research. Among 44 million people, 398 respondents were selected through convenience sampling.

Results

Results Model fit indices

Results Hypotheses Test of the Proposed Model

Results Total, direct and indirect effects in the proposed model