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Nation brand personality and product evaluation among Japanese people: Implications for nation branding

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Abstract

This study explores the association between nation brand personality and product evaluation. Conducting an online questionnaire survey in Japan that used the quota sampling method (N=880), the product evaluation of various products (leather shoes, smartphones, movies, automobiles, shirts, mineral water and tour preference) was measured for seven countries (China, Germany, India, Italy, the United States, South Korea and Vietnam). A factor analysis yielded three nation brand personality dimensions (sincerity, competence and warmth), two of which are predicted by the stereotype content model. China was evaluated the lowest on all three dimensions, and China’s brand personality was most negatively correlated with consumer ethnocentrism among seven countries. The contact hypothesis was only partially supported for nation brand personalities. Nation brand personalities were associated with product evaluations in different ways depending on product category. Competence was positively correlated with the evaluation of all the products, while the warmth was positively correlated with the evaluation of fashion-related products and movies. Sincerity was positively correlated with the evaluation of high-tech products and mineral water. Tour preference was most strongly correlated with nation liking. The article discusses implications for nation branding strategies on the basis of these findings.

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Notes

  1. According to the results of a survey of a random sample of Japanese citizens (JGSS-2008 survey) (JGSS Research Center, 2013), 63.3 per cent of people held a job, as compared with 61.7 per cent of the respondents in this survey; 31 per cent of the sample had a college education or higher, as compared with 43 per cent of the respondents in this survey. These results indicate that this survey was biased toward highly educated people, to some extent.

  2. The authors selected Germany and Italy because products imported from other large European countries such as France and Britain are not as favored as those made in Germany and Italy in Japan.

  3. Therefore, products not produced in some countries (for example, airplanes and chopsticks) were avoided.

  4. These five items were adapted and employed in Ishii (2012). The items include ‘I buy things made in Japan wherever possible’, ‘To reduce unemployment in Japan, I think we should avoid buying imported goods’, ‘As a Japanese person, I don’t think it’s good to buy many imported goods’, ‘I think we should buy imported goods only when similar products made in Japan are not available’ and ‘I buy things made in Japan rather than imported goods if the quality is the same.’ Cronbach’s alpha was 0.831.

  5. Responses about Japan are excluded from the following analysis because Japan is not a foreign country for the respondents. The response data were pooled for seven countries (China, Germany, India, Italy, South Korea, the United States and Vietnam) in the following analysis and every respondent rated two countries. The total number of observations is 1540.

  6. The correlations between these three scores are 0.626 (sincerity and competence), 0.689 (sincerity and warmth) and 0.610 (competence and warmth).

  7. It may not be surprising because the warmth includes ‘familiar’ item. However, even after removing ‘familiar’ from the warmth, the standardized coefficient is statistically significant (β=0.076; t=2.64, P<0.01).

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Grant (No. 22330051). The authors would like to express their gratitude to Yoshito Maruoka (Director of iPublic Relations Division, Dentsu Inc.) for his insightful suggestions on this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tsukuba, Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences, 1-1-1, Tennoudai, Tsukuba, 3058573, Ibaraki, Japan

    Kenichi Ishii

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  1. Kenichi Ishii
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  2. Satoshi Watanabe
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An early version of this article was presented at the annual conference of the Japanese Society of Social Psychology held in Tsukuba, Japan, in November 2012.

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Ishii, K., Watanabe, S. Nation brand personality and product evaluation among Japanese people: Implications for nation branding. Place Brand Public Dipl 11, 51–64 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2014.25

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