The Mythological Aspects of Country-of-Origin: The Case of the Swedishness of Swedish Fashion

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국마케팅과학회
· 수록지 정보 : Journal of Global Fashion Marketing / 2권 / 4호 / 223 ~ 234페이지
· 저자명 : Jacob Ostberg

초록

In both practical marketing management and marketingscholarship the concept of County-of-Origin has been widelyemployed the last couple of decades. Despite the ubiquity ofcountry-of-origin references in contemporary marketing thereare conceptual blind spots in our understanding of the concept.
In this article the theoretical perspective of country-of-origin isdiscussed using the empirical example of Swedish fashion toillustrate how marketing related to the notion of place is alwayscontingent on the various mythologies always alreadypresent. Departure is hence taken in the notion that an understandingof contemporary Swedish fashion cannot be decoupledfrom an overall understanding of Sweden's role in popularculture. This base in popular culture, together with the particularhistoricity of Swedish fashion, forms a basis of differentversions of Swedishness on which contemporary fashion brands—both Swedish and foreign—can build. A number of differentways in which Swedish fashion brands relate to these availablemythologies of Swedishness, as well as other place mythologiesis outlined. On a theoretical level the paper addressescalls for more research on the symbolic aspects of country-of-origin.
To argue that the place where something “comes from” isimportant for the success of a market offering is by no meansa novel thought. In mainstream marketing country-of-origin istypically seen as a cognitive cue, i.e. “an informational stimulusabout or relating to a product that is used by consumersto infer beliefs regarding product attributes such as quality”.
Culturally influence marketing researchers have critiqued thisnotion and added that country-of-origin is not merely a pieceof information that goes into making decisions, rather country-of-origin might link a product to a rich product-country imagery,with sensory, affective and ritual connotations.
Furthermore, since contemporary production and branding processesare rather complex, oftentimes encompassing multiple locations,the designation product-country image is sometimesused rather than country-of-origin to signal that it is rather theplace that something is associated with that matters, rather thanwhere something is produced. Brands are important for consumers for several reasons. Inthe view of McCracken, consumption objects as well as brandsrepresent bridges to displaced meanings, i.e. properties of ourpersonality that we cannot attain in the here and now. Thelack of these properties, we are led to believe, is what preventsus from being realized as a better version of ourselves.
By the magical whims of advertising it is as if these propertiescome to reside in the consumption objects. It is in thislight that the notion of Swedish fashion, or any other placeconnected to a product group, needs to be thought about.
Brand owners who try to connect their brand to a particularplace trust that consumers will value this positively, and consumersvalue the place branding activities since they help themboth in making decisions and in constructing a coherent lifenarrative. Country-of-origin might influence consumer productevaluations in three principle ways: cognitive, affective andnormative. Cognitive means that country-of-origin is used as acue for product quality, e.g. consumers might hold beliefs thatgarments sown in Italy are of high quality and garments sownin Turkey are of low quality. Affective means that country-of-origin has symbolic and emotional value to consumers,e.g. consumers emanating from a particular country might beemotionally attached to certain brands and products from thatcountry. Normative means that consumers might hold socialand personal norms related to products from certain countries,e.g. some might not want to purchase products produced insweatshops in which worker safety cannot be assured and othersmight want to purchase only locally produced products inorder not to affect the environment with unnecessary shippingcosts.
In order to discuss the use of Swedishness in the marketingof Swedish fashion the potential marketing positions related toplace can be structured according to the two dimensionsIntended Market and Place Marketing Approach. IntendedMarket refers to whether a brand caters to the Intranational(Swedish) Market alone or whether they are also aspiring to abroader International audience. Place Marketing Approach refersto whether a company is leveraging the mythologies rooted inthe Intranational (Swedishness) in building their brand orwhether a company are using the mythologies the International,which might encompass both other places and no place at all.
These two dimensions create four possible positions: provincial,national, pseudo-international, and cosmopolitan. One importantinsight from this article is that the possible meaning positionsthat a company can take is not limited to the factual locationof the company; either a national or an international marketingapproach can be taken by Swedish or international companies. A Swedish company leveraging a Swedish marketing approachcould be said to have an indexical connection to the place.
They can, in some way, claim lineage to the country ofSweden either because production takes place there or becausethe company in some other way is based in Sweden. Othercompanies might also leverage the mythologies of Swedishnessbut they then merely have an iconic connection to the place.
There is a resemblance between the expression of the companyand that of the available mythologies of the place, but no genuinephysical connections. The same reasoning goes for thecompanies adapting a pseudo-international approach; they havean iconic connection to the places from which they draw theirmythologies. By thinking about marketing based on country-of-origin in this way we decouple the available strategiesfrom the physical location of the companies and instead viewvarious country-of-origin mythologies as cultural resources thatcan be leveraged by companies in their brand buildingactivities. Depending on the intended market companies willneed to adapt the way in which they perpetuate the availablemythologies. This is especially the case for companies with astrong position on the local market but with aspirations to goglobal. These companies might then oscillate between a provincialposition on the Swedish market and Swedish position onthe international market.

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