The purpose of this thesis is to understand what the impact of Country-of-Manufacture image on the Brand Equity would be. More especially, it focuses on the impact of products “made in France” in Taiwan. The objective is to understand if it would be beneficial for companies to use a “made in France” claim on their products and if it is the case for every product. To accomplish this, the brand equity of a hedonic product (cosmetic brand) and the brand equity of a utilitarian brand (car brand) will be measured by using Aaker’s (2002) conceptual model for brand equity. Taiwanese consumers link the image of France as a country of manufacture with the brand equity of a cosmetic brands, in the contrary the relationship between the image of country of manufacture and the brand equity of a car brand “made in France” could not be proven by this research. Those conclusions can be linked with the image and the stereotypes Taiwanese consumers have about France as a country of Manufacture. France is considered as a creative country but not as an industrial and technological country. This implies different marketing and communication strategies for the products “made in France” exported to Taiwan, which should adapt their strategies in line with the types of products they are selling. However, a general conclusion would be favourable to the creation of an official “made in France” label manager by the French government to develop a more powerful image of France as a Country-of- Manufacture for more categories of products.

TABLE OF CONTENT
I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………….. 1
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND……………………………………………………….. 1
1. Understand Brand Equity…………………………………………………………………... 1
2. Country-of-Origin………………………………………………………………………….. 3
3. Made in France……………………………………………………………………………... 5
4. Impact of “Made in France” on Purchase intension and willingness to pay……………….. 9
5. Effect of Country-of-Origin on brand equity………………………………………………. 9
6. French products in Taiwan………………………………………………………………… 10
7. Hedonic vs utilitarian products……………………………………………………………. 11
8. Country-of-origin impact on hedonic vs utilitarian products……………...………………. 12
III. RESEARCH QUESTION……………………………………………………………….. 12
IV. HYPOTHESIS…………………………………………………………………………... 13
1. Country of Manufacture and Brand Equity……………………………………………….. 13
2. Country of Manufacture and Brand Equity Components………………………………… 13
3. Brand Equity Component and Overall Brand Equity…………………………………….. 14
V. CONCEPTUAL MODEL………………………………………………………………... 16
VI. METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………………… 17
1. The Questionnaire……………………………………………………………………….... 17
2. Brands choice……………………………………………………………………………... 18
VII. HYPOTHESIS ANALYSIS……………………………………………………………. 19
1. Demographic Analysis……………………………………………………………………. 19
2. France’s “macro” and “micro” image…………………………………………………….. 19
a) France’s “macro” image…………………………………………………………………... 19
b) France’s “micro” image…………………………………………………………………... 20
3. Hypotheses testing: Utilitarian products…………………………………………….……. 21
a. EFA……………………………………………………………………………………….. 21
b. Reliability test: Cronbach test…………………………………………………………….. 21
c. Hypothesis testing………………………………………………………………………… 21
4. Hypothesis testing: Hedonic products…………………………………………………….. 24
a. EFA……………………………………………………………………………………….. 24
b. Reliability test: Cronbach test…………………………………………………………….. 24
c. Hypothesis testing………………………………………………………………………… 24
VIII. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………... 27
IX. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATION……………………………………………………….. 28
X. LIMITATIONS OF THIS RESEARCH…………………………………………………. 29
XI. REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………….. 30
XII. ANNEXES……………………………………………………………………………... 32

King, S. (1991). Brand building in the 1990s. Journal of Consumer Marketing.
Keller, K. L. (2003). Brand synthesis: The multidimensionality of brand knowledge. Journal of consumer research, 29(4), 595-600.
Pitcher, A. E. (1985). The role of branding in international advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 4(3), 241-246.
Aaker, D. A. (2009). Managing brand equity.
Cobb-Walgren, C. J., Ruble, C. A., & Donthu, N. (1995). Brand equity, brand preference, and purchase intent. Journal of advertising, 24(3), 25-40.
Thakor, M. V. (1996). Brand origin: conceptualization and review. Journal of consumer marketing.
Aaker, D. A. (1992). The value of brand equity. Journal of business strategy.
Larceneux, F. (2010). Stratégies de signalisation de la qualité: l'impact des labels sur le processus de décision des consommateurs. Editions universitaires européennes
Ingarao, A., Collange, V., Bernard, Y., & Zarrouk-Karoui, S. (2020). «Fabrication française»: quels effets sur l’intention d’achat et le consentement à payer?. Décisions Marketing, (1), 45-69.
Yasin, N. M., Noor, M. N., & Mohamad, O. (2007). Does image of country‐of‐origin matter to brand equity?. Journal of Product & brand management.
Nebenzahl, I. D., Jaffe, E. D., & Lampert, S. I. (1997). Towards a theory of country image effect on product evaluation. MIR: Management International Review, 27-49.
Nagashima, A. (1970). A comparison of Japanese and US attitudes toward foreign products. Journal of marketing, 34(1), 68-74.
Oshima, C., & Nagashima, A. (1997). Ultra-thin epitaxial films of graphite and hexagonal boron nitride on solid surfaces. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 9(1), 1.
Batra, Rajeev and Olli T. Ahtola( 1990), "Measuring the Hedonic and Utilitarian Sources of Consumer Attitudes," Marketing Letters, 2 (2), 159-70.
Dhar, R., & Wertenbroch, K. (2000). Consumer choice between hedonic and utilitarian goods. Journal of marketing research, 37(1), 60-71.
Hirschman, Elizabeth C. and Morris B. Holbrook (1982), "Hedonic Consumption: Emerging Concepts, Methods and Propositions," Journal of Marketing, 46 (Summer), 92-101.
Magnusson, P., Westjohn, S. A., & Sirianni, N. J. (2019). Beyond country image favorability: How brand positioning via country personality stereotypes enhances brand evaluations. Journal of International Business Studies, 50(3), 318-338.
Mostafa, R. H. (2015). The impact of country of origin and country of manufacture of a brand on overall brand equity. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 7(2), 70.
Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of personality and social psychology, 82(6), 878.
Martin, I. M., & Eroglu, S. (1993). Measuring a multi-dimensional construct: Country image. Journal of business research, 28(3), 191-210.