In a provocative article in this journal, Jean-Claude Usunier (2006) summarises the critique on country
of origin (COO) research and proclaims it to be ivory tower research that is of little relevance for consumers
and businesses. Against this background, our paper comments on recent studies criticising both
past COO research and the relevance of the COO concept itself. We systematically counter the critique
on COO research and provide reflections on the way forward for the field. Despite acknowledging
Usunier’s (2006) views that research in this area might be guided by feasibility, rather than theoretical
and practical relevance, and suffers from self-referential dynamics and overspecialization, we are critical
of his conclusions with regard to the extant literature, its achievements, and future research. We argue
that COO is still a very relevant area of research, but one that does need to address several critical
challenges.