Relationship between country of origin, brand experience and brand equity: The moderating effect of automobile country

Globalization made branding competition rise that caused the country of assembly (COA)/country of design (COD)/country of parts (COP) linked to customers closely in global market. Prior studies have adopted the “relationship” to enhance the understanding of the relationship between consumers and brands. The purpose of the paper is to test the relationship between country of assembly/country of design/country of parts, brand experience and brand equity. Automobile country will be tested the moderating effect on the model. Top two automobile brands (Japan/Germany) sale of imported cars in 2010 Taiwan automobile market sale reports are selected as research setting. A sample of 688 useful respondents was collected through online survey and paper questionnaires two methods. The respondents are the Japan/Germany car owners in Taiwan. AMOS 17.0 statistic software is adopted to analyze the reliability/validation testing of constructs and structural equation modeling (SEM) was use for the model hypotheses testing. The hypotheses were all supported by the data analysis result. The final research findings are as following. First, country of assembly, country of design, and country of parts were positively affects brand experience. Second, the results revealed brand experience was positivity affects brand equity. Third, the automobile country (Japan/Germany) plays a moderating role, significant in the model. Finally, the study offer management implications and directions to international marketing decision-makers of automobile industry and future researchers.