Advertising Effects of Congruity among country-of product-association, country-of-brand and country-of-endorser.

Every country has its specialties, or famous products. For example, Korea is famous for Kimchi, and France is famous for designer fashion. In other words, certain products have strong associations with a particular country. Previous literature, however, rarely discusses the concept of country-of-product-association, not to mention the joint effects of country of origin of product, brand and endorser. This study explores the advertising effect of congruity among country-of product-association, country-of-brand and country-of-endorser, as well as how such a congruity influences advertisement involvement and process fluency.
This study conducted a 2(country-of-product association: Taiwan vs. Japan) x2(country of brand: Taiwan vs. Japan) x2 (country of endorser: Taiwan vs. Japan) experiment to test hypotheses. The 8 experiment conditions constitute 3 groups different on the degree of congruity: high congruity, moderate congruity and low congruity. The results showed that moderate congruity leads to more favorable attitudes toward the product, the brand, and the advertisement. Consumers focus more on the consistency between country-of-brand and country-of-endorser when the product is associated with the local country. When the product is associated with a foreign country, consumers tend to focus on the congruity among the country-of-origin among product, brand, and endorser. Neither advertisement involvement nor process fluency is influenced by the congruity, no matter the product is associated with local or foreign country.
The concept “country-of-product-association” is new in the marketing area. This study represents an initial effort to explore the effect of country-of-product-association and its congruity with country-of-brand and country-of-endorser on marketing communication. The results of this paper not only contribute to congruity and country-of-origin literature, but also serve as a guidance for marketing practitioners who want to promote a product with a strong country association.