Do South Korean Companies Need to Obscure Their.pptx a Case Solution

8/13/2019 Do South Korean Companies Need to Obscure Their.pptx a Case Solution

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Do South Korean companies need

to obscure their

country-of-origin image?: A case ofSamsung

Professor( Dr) Avinash Kapoor


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Statement of the problem

To investigate dissimilar effects of the country

image on consumers brand image and

purchase intention by differently perceived

nationality groups.


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Why

It is critical for emerging companies like

Samsung to understand whether or not using

the masked country image has any benefits to

its image and selling.


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THEORY/ CONCEPT

What is Brand Image:


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What is Country Image:

The total of all descriptive, inferential, and

informational belief about a particular

country

Even though country image can be formed

from past experience of using a product in a

given country, Country image is different from

product image or attitude toward the product.


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Country Image

Only when the product is evaluated as

derivation of country image, it is counted as

country image.

Evaluating the effect of country image on a

specific brand becomes complex in this

context.


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ANALYSIS

It is very hard to differentiate the product

image from the country image.

Some Korean companies have not actively

publicized the nationality of the product in

case obscuring the country-of-origin (COO)

plays a positive role in building favorable

brand image and reinforcing purchaseintention.


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Contd

Samsung is a Korea-based company

Electronics market is highly competitive.

There are giant multinational makers such asSony, Panasonic, JVC, Magnavox, and Toshiba.


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When the company has a mediocre

country-of-origin image or no COO,

Does obscuring COO have a positive impact on

consumers purchase intention?

Are consumers wise enough to check the COO

of the product before their purchase decision?

Is there any backlash for cheating consumers

about COO?


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Terms

COO: country of origin: Image of product orthe country that people believe it comes fromhas on consumers perception of the

product. Just like company image, country image

evokes certain values, qualifications, andemotional triggers in consumers minds about

the likely values of any product that comesfrom that country.


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Terms: Theissue of COO image or the made-in

phenomenon

Is it the general belief about a particularcountry that is distinguishable from productimage.

OC: the place a consumer links a product with[(origin country (OC)]

DC: designed-in country (DC) to highlight the

country that the finished product wasdesigned.

MC: the place where it is actually produced.


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Terms

GCA: GENERAL COUNTRY ATTITUDE (Think

India, China, Europe, KOREA)

GPA: General Product Attitude (Electronic

items from china, India, Korea, Japan)

SPA: specific product attitudes: Specific

knowledge about marketing and product

attributes. (Yoga, Art, Painting, TV,

Refrigerator, cell phone)


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Terms

PCI: product-country image (PCI) this conceptsays that essence of country image lies inconsumers perceptions about products, not

in the actual made-in identification such asOC, MC, and DC

Say for example: If consumers perceive oneproduct as made-in China, the PCI of theproduct is China regardless of the real identityof the maker country.


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The cues:

internal and external, that a consumer usesto make the purchase decision

Internal cues, which are things such as taste,

design and performance etc. These are lesscontrollable

External cues such as brand, price, name, and

COO; more controllable. Country image is an external cue to the buyer,

which is used in the final purchase decision.


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What Consumers Do

Consumers may use country image as a halo,or sort of generalization, to evaluate theproducts if little is known about them.

Consumers might use a summary construct inproduct evaluations, meaning that a consumerwould store the brand information aschunks and retrieve them later when

needed to process information about otherproducts.


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Suggestions of possible solutions:

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE

Choose appropriate brand elements (brandname, logo, symbol, character, package, slogan).

Develop marketing programs (product, price,place, promotion).

Leverage secondary associations (companyimage, COO, competition, endorser, events).

All the above , as secondary associations fosterthe environment for creating strong, favorable,unique brand image and brand awareness thatultimately lead to the increment of overall brandequity ( Keller).


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Case in question: Evaluation of possible

solution

Obscure Origin Cues;

If a consumer is not familiar with a product, they,

in turn, make a general assumption about a

product in relation to the knowledge held about acountry or other products made in that country.

Companies that have inferior country image

especially tend to obscure, suppress, or borrowthe country image of superior countries.


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Contd.

Also, consumers use the country image to

infer product quality when they are not

confident about the product/service.

The low level of consumer knowledge

stimulates the use of the country image.

Thus, obscuring or borrowing the country

image can occur when consumers are not

familiar with products/services.


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Advantages/ Disadvantages

Country image has an impact on the

marketability of a product and at times can be

obscured when the countrys image is not

expected to contribute to the products

foreign sales or other products previously

marketed do not contribute to the general or

specific product image of the country.


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Contd..

A downplaying of the OC can disassociate the

product from the country.

Companies hide all possible indicators in

advertising that could allude to the harmfulcountry image.

An illustration of this concept is the Englishsounding names used for new models ofelectronics by Japanese car companies .

The suppression of origin identifiers ideallyassists in the global sales.


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CLASS OPINION: ????


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Advantages/ Disadvantages

Another route;

Overcoming a negative PCI is to borrow the image

of another country hoping the consumer will

use the halo or summary construct .

The image can be borrowed in various ways

such as in branding, packaging, and advertising.


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Example

Reebok, an American shoe company.

While a US company manufactures Reebok, it

uses the British flag as an emblem on the

tongue of the shoe, distinguishing it as

associated with the UK rather than America.

Reebok is borrowing the flag in hopes of the

consumer seeing it as a symbol of

distinction.


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CONCLUSION:

In the Samsungs case, the effort to increase the

country image of South Korea should be the firstagenda to enlarge the American market.

The consortium-type organization between thegovernment and companies can stage a nation-wide campaign to enhance the countrys image.

In fact, obscuring country image may have no

effect (maybe short-term gain is possible), but inthe long-term effect, promoting the accuratecountry image will contribute to market stability.


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Conclusion Contd.

In addition, it is also ethically problematic anddiscouraging to employees in view of workmorale.

Korean companies such as Samsung, Hyundai,and Daewoo have been marketing overseas butare still not thought of as high quality. Korean

products are commonly thought of as a good

value but product quality, in the eye of theconsumer, is still in question, especially in relationto Japanese products.


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Contd.

The real problem is the effect of country stereotype.Stereotyping the country image establishes theconsistency in mind and reinforces the bias.

Developing countries such as Thailand, China, Taiwan,

Brazil, and India etc have the same dilemma in theirexporting strategies of different products. In somecases, they try to borrow other developed countries

images or obscure their country image (for example,

consumers can easily see many different country labelsby design, material, and manufacturer).

Do South Korean Companies Need to Obscure Their.pptx a Case Solution

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