Abstract
The Country-of-origin is the country of manufacturing, production where a product comes from, or the location of the headquarters. Consumers identify products by their country of origin and judge them on this criterion. The country-of-origin effect is created by information, advertising claims or word-of-mouth concerning the company, miscellaneous brands, or products. Consumers evaluate a product by its origin and this often leads to a biased image of the product. The bias is stronger when product knowledge is low. That is why companies, which relocate their production, try to hide the origin of the new manufacture in order to keep belief of the primary country of origin. This origin can be interpreted as high quality, excellence, and chic or at the contrary synonym of mistrust, poor quality or deception. Firms can use country-of-origin effect as a marketing tool.
