Regional Branding: Customer’s Experience with the Certified Products

Abstract

This article focuses on the experience of Czech customers with the purchase of products labelled by the Association of Regional Brands and Bohemian Paradise Association. The aim of this paper is to evaluate selected indicators associated with purchasing certified regional products. The studied characteristics focus on the knowledge and perception of several chosen microregional brands and on the purchase of a certified product itself. The article presents the results of research conducted through a questionnaire survey, whose 1390 respondents are residents as well as visitors of eight different micro‑regions in the Czech Republic. Awareness of regional brands within the sample surveyed is around 46 %. The relationship between awareness of regional brand and respondents’ age, education and status towards the region has been identified. The perception of consumers considered, a brand is most often associated with tangible products, namely food and agricultural produce. Consumers view brands chiefly as a guarantee of production in the given region and a certain tradition. Most often, the respondents take notice of brands on the packaging of a particular certified product.

Keywords

• region
• regional product
• sustainable development
• regional branding
• purchasing behaviour
• customer‘s experience