Consumer Attitudes: Canadian Consumer Attitudes Towards Products of Foreign Origin Available to Purchase

In developing a corporate imagery for a product, the importance of various marketing mix variables such as product appearance, brand names, advertising strategy and channels used is firmly established. However, an additional factor should be considered, that is national origin of the product or the imagery of the country of origin has often been overlooked by marketers and importers alike. The phrase “made in…” as a fifth element of the marketing mix can have tremendous influence on the acceptance and success of a product over and above the specific advertising techniques used. While the phenomenon of consumer bias against foreign products has been empirically demonstrated in such works by Baumgartner and Jolibert, there is relatively little understanding of the factors underlying such bias. There seems to have been no real advancement in the development of theories which might explain why consumers view foreign products differently than they do domestic products.