The Country of Origin and Consumer Ethnocentrism Effects in the Evaluation of a Global Brand: the case of McDonald’s

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the influence of country of origin and ethnocentrism on the image of a brand known internationally – the fast food company McDonald’s – and observe if there exist differences in the evaluation of brand image based on gender, age and socio-economic class. The work begins with a contextualization, followed by a review of the main concepts applied: evaluation of a global brand, consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin effect. A survey based on a non-probabilistic sample was carried out and 275 individuals from the city of Sao Paulo filled in a questionnaire comprised of questions aimed to measure socio-demographic data and three scales, each one to measure country of origin effect, consumer ethnocentrism and brand evaluation of McDonald’s. It was verified that, although the level of ethnocentrism does not interfere in brand image, the country of origin effect is useful to discriminate respondents in relation to the positiveness of their evaluation towards the brand McDonald’s: individuals that evaluate negatively the United States as a country, tend to evaluate negatively McDonald’s as well. Young consumers, women and individuals with higher income evaluated more positively the brand under study, as well as its country of origin. It was verified a positive and linear relationship between country of origin and brand image evaluations.