Abstract: Brand’s country-of-origin stereotypes have influenced greatly on the consumers’ brand selection and brand purchase willingness, but they were mainly assessed from the aspect of consciousness level in the previous studies. With the development of implicit social cognition research, more and more studies show great concern for two different aspects: consciousness and unconsciousness. This study aims to explore dual brand’s country-of-origin stereotypes and how national sentiment influence brand’s country-of-origin stereotypes. On the basis of stereotype activation theory, it was hypothesized that the explicit and implicit brand’s country-of-origin stereotypes could be changed by the national sentiment which is aroused by either direct or indirect persuasion. A 2 (country of origin: domestic brand and foreign brand) × 3 (persuasion: direct; indirect; none) × 3 (product category: symbolic; utilitarian; hybrid) mixed factorial design was implemented in the study. The data were collected by convenience sampling with 121 university students who represented the consumers. They were assigned randomly to three subgroups to participate in the experiment. Subjects who omitted items in the explicit brand impression questionnaire and those who had an error rate of IAT equal to or higher than 20% were excluded. As a result, a total of 101 participants were remained. The responses of the subjects to the questionnaire and the IAT were analyzed by T-test and ANOVA. The results of the experiments indicated the following: (a) The explicit impression of quality and communication of domestic brand is worse than that of foreign brand, while the explicit impression of the price is better than that of foreign brand; and there was no difference between domestic brand and foreign brand in the explicit impression of service and general impression; (b) Compared with foreign brand, consumers have more positive implicit impression on domestic brand; (c) The national sentiment aroused by direct persuasion couldn’t change the explicit brand’s country-of-origin stereotypes, but the national sentiment aroused by indirect persuasion could make the explicit general impression on domestic brand of hybrid products more positive; (d) Consumer’s implicit brand’s country-of-origin stereotypes couldn’t be changed by either direct or indirect persuasion; (e) The activation of brand’s country-of-origin stereotypes are not fully automated process. Base on the result of this study, if the managers of enterprises want to change the consumers’ country-of-origin stereotypes by using the national sentiment-based marketing strategy, the indirect persuasion would be more effective than the direct persuasion. The product category should be considered when the national sentiment-based marketing strategy is used.

Key words: national sentiment, stereotype, country-of-origin, activation

摘要： 研究探讨了品牌来源国刻板印象的双重表现及其改变，结果表明：从外显的层面上看，相对国外品牌，消费者普遍认为国产品牌在质量印象、传播印象上不如国外品牌，在价格印象上比国外品牌好，在服务印象和整体印象上二者无差异；相对国外品牌，消费者对国产品牌具有更为积极的内隐品牌刻板印象；以直接劝说方式激发的民族情感不能改变外显品牌来源国刻板印象，但是以间接劝说方式激发的民族情感可以使消费者对国产综合型产品的外显整体印象更为积极；无论以直接还是间接劝说方式激发的民族情感均不能使消费者对国产品牌产生更强的正向内隐品牌来源国刻板印象；品牌来源国刻板印象的激活并非完全的自动化过程。

关键词: 民族情感, 刻板印象, 品牌来源国, 激活