The ‘Country-Of-Origin Effect’ and Consumer Attitudes to ‘Buy Local’ Campaigns: Australian Evidence

Abstract

Universally, governments promote the purchase of locally made products via a variety of ‘buy local’ campaigns. The common expectation is that the country-of-origin effect will work systematically to bias purchase preference in favour of locally-made products. Promotional activity employing appeals based on country-of-origin, and the practice of labelling products with the country of origin are premised on this expectation. A survey of 401 Australian consumers about their evaluations of an ‘Australian Made’ campaign showed high levels of campaign awareness and of its specific appeals, together with attitudes highly favourable to both the underlying concept and the operation of the campaign. These attitudes were widely held by respondents. Moreover, awareness and favourable attitudes towards the campaign were found to be associated with purchase predispositions, suggesting potential for behavioural change as an outcome of such campaigns.

The Country-of-Origin Effect and Consumer Attitudes to “Buy Local” Campaign

“…As reported by Durvasula, Andrews and Netemeyer, (1997), high CETSCALE scores indicate a high level of ethnocentrism, while low CETSCALE scores indicate a low level of ethnocentrism. Attitudinal scales developed and tested by Cameron and Elliot (1998) were also employed in this study. According to these researchers the attitudinal scales established a link between the country-of-origin effect and the general shopping behaviour of consumers.…”

Explaining inconsistencies in implicit and explicit attitudes towards domestic and foreign products

“…This effect does not apply to the atypical members of a category. Fiske and Neuberg (1990) and Fiske et al (1999) suggest that when people judge a member of a category as typical of that category, their attitudes towards the typical member will be more consistent to that of the category. For members judged as atypical, a re-categorization to a different category takes place, together with an attribute-by-attribute evaluation.…”

Omani Consumer’s Ethnocentrism and Demand for Locally Produced Products

“…The mean scale value of the CETSCALE is used as an indicator of the level of Consumer Ethnocentrism As reported by [47], high CETSCALE scores (above 68 for a 7-point Likert-type scale and above 51 for a 5-point Likert-type scale) indicate a high level of ethnocentrism, while low CETSCALE scores (below 68 for a 7-point Likert-type scale and below 51 for a 5-point Likert-type scale) indicate a low level of ethnocentrism. Attitudinal scales developed and tested by [50] and employed in [36] have been utilized in this study to address the second and third research questions.…”

“…Following [36] and [50], the same attitudinal statements will be employed in this study with a 5-point Likert-type scale, (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree (Neutral (Undecided)), 4 = Agree, and 5 = Strongly Agree). The attitudinal statements are intended to solicit the opinions of Omani consumers, first about Oman produced products (Table 2), and then secondly about "Buy Locally-produced products" campaign (Table 3).…”