Evaluating Brand Name Connotation to a Country: A Conceptualization

A good brand name is very important for the success of a product. A thoughtful brand name can convey information that can influence potential customers in a positive way. Thus marketers often formulate brand names intended to explicitly or implicitly play a role in influencing customer perceptions. One way of doing this is to have a brand name bearing connotations to a foreign country. In general, prior research on country-of-origin effects has not adequately focused on exploring brand name connotation and its effect on product evaluation. This research presents a conceptual framework for determining if/how brand name connotation to a foreign country affects product evaluation. Specifically, this paper reviews relevant literature pertaining to country-of-origin and brand name connotation, discusses a conceptualization, proposes research hypotheses, and outlines procedures for collecting data to evaluate the proposed hypotheses.