The Impact of the Country of Origin's Image on Brand Loyalty; Analyzing the Mediating Role of Brand Awareness and Perceived Quality among Imported Car Users

Today, the image of the country of origin has become one of the most important areas in the literature on international marketing and consumer behavior. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the concept of country of origin image on brand loyalty, with the mediating role of brand awareness and perceived brand quality. This research is an applied one based on the nature and method of descriptive research in the field of correlation. The statistical population of the present study includes iranian consumers of cars with European and Asian of origin. The sample size required by the rule of thumb was estimated at 5 to 15 times the number of items and the non-random sampling method is available. The research instrument was a localized electronic questionnaire based on research by Jang et al (2014) containing 17 questions. Validity is confirmed by content validity and confirmatory factor analysis and its reliability is confirmed by Cronbach's alpha (0.948). Amos software version 24 was used. The results show that the concept of country of origin image has a positive effect on brand awareness with coefficient of 0.943, brand awareness on perceived quality with coefficient of 0.810 and brand perception on brand loyalty with coefficient of 0.895 are meaningful.there has been a significant positive impact between the country of origin image (whose structures include cultural assets, fashion equity and technology advance) and brand loyalty with the mediating role of brand awareness and perceived brand quality with a coefficient of 0.795.