Country‐of‐Origin Stereotyping: A Case Study in the New Zealand Motor Vehicle Industry

Focuses on the issue of country of origin stereotyping by consumersin the New Zealand automobile market. The approach uses 275 mailquestionnaires (with 150 of these being returned) containing bi‐polaradjectives to assess the current attitude of new car purchasers towardsautomobiles made in four different countries (France, Italy, Germany andJapan). These four countries were chosen on the basis of their brand andmodel representation in the New Zealand market. The results of the studyindicate that there is a significant level of stereotyping in the NewZealand automobile market, with “made in Germany” emergingas a favourite place of origin among consumers. Also, the recentpurchase of a brand of automobile from a particular country of origintends to positively bias the individual′s perception of automobiles fromthat country. The perception of automobiles from the four testedcountries differed among various demographic groups classified by age,income, occupation and sex.