Study 2
Survey: Country-Of-Origin
Our Participants
430 Chinese consumers
Age: 18 - 55
Location: 10 tier one cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, etc.
Average monthly household income: above RMB20,000 (C$2,000)
Previous purchase of imported food: yes
When: 2023
What did we ask our participants in the survey?
Cognitive country image: their thoughts of Canada
Affective country image: their feelings of Canada
Agricultural image: their thoughts of Canada's agricultural sector
Agricultural product image: their thoughts of Canadian agricultural products
Feelings toward the agricultural products
Purchase intention
What did the results tell us?
Cognitive and affective country image influenced agricultural image.
Affective country image and agricultural image influenced agricultural product image.
Affective country image and agricultural product image influenced feelings toward the agricultural products.
Feelings toward the agricultural products influenced purchase intention.
What did these results mean to us?
The affective country image has a direct effect on agricultural product image and the feelings toward the agricultural products ultimately influenced purchase intention. In other words, the effect of cognitive country image, agricultural image, agricultural product image only had indirect effect on purchase intention. This shows that Chinese consumers seem to rely more on their feelings about Canada and Canadian agricultural products to make their purchase decisions. As imported food items are more expensive and are often considered special, their purchase may be more hedonic than utilitarian in nature.
Although few Chinese consumers might have ambivalent feelings toward Canada, the majority of them still held very positive thoughts and feelings toward Canada. As such, Canadian agricultural products manufacturers may want to emphasize how consumers may feel about their products in addition to their strengths in food safety and quality.
Please feel free to contact us for more information of this study.