The use of ‘country of origin’ to develop a brand image by companies operating in the Canadian defence sector
Abstract
The study explored how and why companies in the Canadian defence sector make use of
country of origin (COO) in their print advertising to develop a brand image.
Using an interpretive method, the research methodology consisted on a content analysis
of 1229 print advertisements supported by a series of semi-structured interviews with the
resulting transcripts analysed using a hermeneutic approach.
The study indicated that over 40 percent of print advertisements used at least one facet of
COO, with Country of Brand (COB) having the highest occurrence. It was found that
firms used COO to appeal to their customer, create brand awareness and to assist in
exports and did not use COO as it was not deemed required, there were better
communication channels to promote COO and that readers of the subject magazines knew
which firms were Canadian.
As this is the first study into the use of COO in a Business to Government (B2G) sector,
specifically the Canadian defence sector, the study provides new information to the body
of literature. The study also provides practical contributions to firms operating in this
sector including a framework model that can be used to assist in creating a marketing
strategy.