Country and Brand Stereotypes as Drivers of Brand Evaluations

This study investigates how country and brand stereotypes drive purchase intention by generating more positive cognitive and affective responses toward the brand. Drawing on the stereotype content model (SCM), we show that the two stereotypes are interlinked in a chain fashion, whereby country stereotypes drive brand stereotypes which, in turn, positively influence brand quality and brand affect, and, through them, the willingness to buy the brand. Country competence is a stronger predictor of brand stereotypes than country warmth, and both brand warmth and brand competence strongly predict brand quality and brand affect. We advance international marketing literature by providing the first empirical attempt that (a) explicitly differentiates between consumers’ stereotypical perceptions of countries and stereotypical perceptions of brands from these countries, (b) empirically examines the relationships between stereotypical dimensions of different targets (i.e., country vs. brand), and (c) simultaneously considers the impact of both kinds of stereotypes on managerially-relevant consumer outcomes.