ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how using animal metaphors in interviews uncovers rich data about consumer behavior. Most country image and country-of-origin studies adopt a narrow approach to explaining this dynamic relationship. Country image dimensions include innovation, design, prestige, and workmanship that vary by product category and build over time. The literature suggests that a country’s image as a producer is not too different from brand equity. The country-of-origin and country image literatures demonstrate the challenges with modeling human behavior. Open-ended approaches allow respondents to interpret metal images and reduce distortion between images and thoughts. Studies exploring country image focus on country-of-origin, country-of-manufacture, country-of-brand, and country image issues. Animal metaphors offer an interesting study area because the animal word retains the original meaning and the relationship between the animal and the transferred meaning is relevant to the informant. Zoomorphic forced metaphor-elicitation technique offers a useful technique to examine the complexities of country and brand image on foreign products.
