Reconsidering the measurement of country image - theory and practice

The concept of country image has been under constant attention of academic research in marketing, however the focus has been aimed much more at investigating country of origin image than country image. Researchers agree that a strong theoretical background to country image would be necessary and proper measurement instruments should be developed, as this field of study is not as well developed as the country of origin image studies. Recent publications look to a new approach and consider country image related to country branding and use the concept of “country value” in a similar way to “brand value”. The country brand images are very complex and multidimensional, they consist of more dimensions than classical consumer brands. In the same way as brands are measurable, the country image can be measured as well. The main aim of our research is to construct a new, alternative measurement for country image, examining the answers to open-ended questions and testing previously developed scales for this purpose and brand image scales simultaneously. In order to develop our new multidimensional country image scale we reviewed relevant literature from both marketing and non-marketing fields, analysed previously developed scales by identifying their strengths and weaknesses. As a result of this process we choose three different measurements and carried out field research among 400 Hungarian university students to test these instruments simultaneously. In this study we present our findings and the results of the open-ended questions and one of the applied scales. Our aim is to identify the cognitive and affective dimensions of country image, to test the reliability and variability of the measurements, and to provide applications for marketing, tourism and public policy strategies.