Country Image and Consumer Choice: The Case of the Beer Market during the COVID‐19 Pandemic*

Abstract

In this article, I exploit the exogenous shock to China's image in the COVID‐19 pandemic era and study the impact of country image on consumer choice in the South Korean beer market. First, I find that Tsingtao, a popular Chinese beer brand, lost about 4.8 million liters in sales, a 20% decrease, during the first eight months after the COVID‐19 outbreak. Second, the impact of China's worsened image had not weakened by October 2020. Third, top‐selling non‐Chinese beers absorbed most of Tsingtao's lost sales. These findings reveal that country image has a substantial influence on consumer choice.