The consumers’ country-of-origin importance and ethnocentrism in brand evaluation after the Chinese Dairy Scandal

This paper explores the impacts of the country-of-origin (COO) importance and ethnocentrism (CE) on the dairy brand evaluation by the consumers with various demographic backgrounds. The relationship between the consumers’ country-of-origin importance and ethnocentrism is also examined. A sample of 573 Chinese dairy consumers was surveyed over a two-month period through a structured online questionnaire. This study finds that even if consumers report their ethnocentrism for domestic product, they do not attach importance to COO when they evaluate brands. In fact, COO importance significantly influences consumers’ brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality and brand loyalty of the products from their preferred COO, which is linked to an indirect effect on the consumer-based brand equity. Therefore, a higher level CE does not necessarily contribute to the consumers’ actual brand evaluation. Since previous studies on CE did not link CE with COO importance, this study suggests that future research on CE should consider the impact of COO importance to obtain more practical findings.