The term “Brand” has attained huge attentions of many companies especially in this modern era of

globalized world. In business marketplace, brand is the only element that differentiates one’s businesses
products and services from the others. These differentiations has enabled by information and
technology which is easy to access today. The establishment of effective brands has gain superiority in
the regions of Asia. With consideration of brand superiority in mind, this guide will elaborate the
perceptions of consumers towards brands. There is a huge tendency found in consumers that they pay
most of their attentions to the products and services of their own country of origin rather than
international products and services. There are two factors which influence consumer’s perceptions
about evaluations of products and services; perceptions of quality product and services and perceptions
of purchase value of products and services. There are also some misleading perceptions about product
and services present in marketplace that a product is designed in one country, manufactured in another
and assemble in third country. These products are hybrid products where products may involve more
than one country of origin. Therefore consumers feel difficulty when evaluate products. It is the
increasing trend that consumer’s needs are considerably similar around the world. These trends are
attributed to the cross border mobility of populations, electronics, and telecommunication technology
such as films, movies and internet availability.

Another perspective is that hybrid products have shifted the perception of consumers from product
level to brand level in evaluation process. They pay close attention to brand name rather than products
specifications. One study also found that consumers sometimes evaluates products by looking at spelling
and pronunciation and decides whether it is foreign branding or local branding. The perception of
consumers about country of origin sometimes results in biased decision which effects the brand of COO
products or services. For examining consumers issue about COO branding, three propositions have been
developed; culture of brand origin, perceived consumer knowledge and consumer knowledge.

A survey was conducted in Singapore which comprised five days. The questionnaire was total 498 in
numbers, the 459 total responses was recorded while 39 were deleted due to some missing information.
The survey was taken from graduated and under graduated students including faculties of business, arts,
engineering and science. Six brands were used in the study. Three belongs to eastern origin while
another three were from western origin. The data was analyzed using sample t-test. The respondents
age from 18 to 27 years. Almost 52 present of the respondents were under the age of 22 while 58
percent were respondents were male students. The 78 percent of respondents spent less than five
hundreds of dollars every month. Sixty two percent of the respondents watch more than seven hours of
television every week. The consequences show that the proportion of the respondents who correctly
indicated culture of brand origin was larger than the proportion of respondents who correctly indicated
the country of origin. The survey showed the moderate to significant differences for brand familiarity
and country familiarity between those who classify culture of brand origin correctly and those who
classify incorrectly. From the study of survey, it is asserted that the proliferation of hybrid products has
prompted a shift of origin effects from the products to the brand. It was found in this study that young
consumers in Singapore perceived country of brand origin significantly more accurately than country of
origin for the brands. These results were significant for implications of marketing activities undertaken
by global corporations for their brands. On the other side, the use of student sample in this study was
primarily driven by the focus on examining young consumers and convenience of accessibility for data
collection. Sample represents only consumers sharing similar characteristics. Some measure should be
examined here particularly brand familiarity and country familiarity for measurement development and
differences across cultures and origin perceptions.