Home Country Image, Country Brand Equity and Consumers' Product Preferences: An Empirical Study

This study applies the construct of brand equity in a country context, and measures the value-added with which the name of a country endows a product or a brand as perceived by the individual consumer. Specifically, based on Yoo and Donthu's (2001) brand equity scale, a country brand equity (CBE) scale is developed and empirically tested for its psychometric properties; subsequently a model linking (home) country image (COI) and product preferences with country brand equity as an intervening variable is estimated. Results indicate (a) that country brand equity is influenced by country image perceptions, (b) that country brand equity positively impacts on product preferences, and (c) that the latter are not directly influenced by country image perceptions.