A popular research topic in international marketing is how a product's country‐of‐origin influences consumer evaluations (COO research). The purpose of this contribution is to explore how COO research has developed over time in growing disconnection with both consumer and corporate concern. We offer a number of possible explanations to this ‘relevance gap,’ with the caveat that these explanations may be contingent to the COO case study.

Consumers make stereotypical associations between products and countries based on their perceptions of a country's know-how and reputation relative to the design, manufacturing, or branding of particular generic goods. When such associations are shared globally, they reflect product ethnicity, a concept that the authors empirically explore in this article. Operationalization of product ethnicity is based on country–product associations that consumers make with either a product or a country as the initial stimulus, resulting in a combined two-way measurement. The authors first investigate product ethnicity at an exploratory level across five survey countries for a large set of products and countries (Study 1). They identify what they term “context-centered association tendencies” because respondents tend to associate goods more closely with their own country. The authors then relate product ethnicity and context-centered association tendencies to the country-of-origin literature and test research hypotheses with a new set of countries (Study 2), comprising two collectivist cultures (China and Mexico) and two individualist cultures (Germany and the United States). Finally, Study 3 shows that consumers are more willing to buy product offerings that are congruent rather than noncongruent with product ethnicity.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to comment on Magnusson et al.'s paper. Rather than entering into the COO (country of origin) relevance debate, the author observes the shift from manufacturing to brand origin and outline consequences for future COO research by taking into account linguistic aspects of brand names. Design/methodology/approach -This paper documents the issue of brand origin recognition accuracy (BORA, a central theme in Magnusson et al.'s paper) and the progressive replacement of COO and COM (country of manufacture) by COB (country of brand). Linguistic cues lead to both incorrect and correct classification of brands in terms of their national origin, which the author subsumes in four ideal-typical situations, by taking into account company intention to manipulate origin information or not. The author then outlines factors which cause and moderate incorrect versus correct classification, especially brand size, corporate vs product names, and linguistic devices. Findings -A framework is developed crossing causes of incorrect versus correct classification with company strategic branding intents. Suggestions are provided for future research combining linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of BORA. Practical implications -Companies willing to build on the origin and favorability of their brand names should deploy a deliberate naming strategy that is expressed in the textual part, as well as in the visual part (i.e. brand name fonts, logo, packaging) and the accompanying marketing communications, especially advertising copy. Originality/value -This paper takes distance from the raging debate on the relevance of COO research, and suggests to deepen the understanding of BORA. This is done by looking at causes and moderating variables of BORA, and taking into account linguistic aspects of strategic branding in the global market.

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