**4. Conclusions and recommendations**

From a marketing point of view, consumers' purchasing behaviour is affected by the presence of heterogenous preferences that are derived from their own needs. This is especially important when the consumer is faced with new products or innovations. With regard to olive oil, an agrofood product that is one of the main components of the well-known Mediterranean diet, this heterogeneity is still greater, given the lower consumer knowledge in relation to such a product. Nevertheless, it is not exclusive of markets in the first stages of adopting olive oil, but is also, to a lesser extent, present in countries with a stronger tradition of olive oil consumption. Thus, the majority of studies report a stronger role of extrinsic aspects over intrinsic attributes. In this context, price is the major factor affecting consumer behaviour. Nevertheless, when the consumer is familiar with the product, the country of origin is the most influential aspect in determining consumer purchases.

The results obtained here lead the authors to offer a number of implications for marketing management in the olive oil sector. Given the strong presence of olive oil in international markets, as well as production systems strongly linked to a specific area of origin, promoting familiarity or experience of the products could provide firms with an effective source of competitive advantage, because of the positive consequences for the product image.

In particular, for those markets with less knowledge of olive oil (e.g., the US or China) communication actions will be critical for increasing consumers' familiarity and consequently their knowledge about these products. Thus the objective of commercial communication should consider not only different perceptions of the product cues, but also the differences in product familiarity. In particular, for countries in which product knowledge is greater and consumers have greater knowledge of the intrinsic characteristics of the product, communication campaigns should aim to reinforce consumers' image of the product. In contrast, in countries where the product knowledge is more limited, communication should focus on raising the consumers' level of familiarity and knowledge. This will raise the consumer confidence and, by extension, their purchase intention (Laroche *et al*., 1996). In general terms, such campaigns should be divided into four consecutive stages:


In developing all these communication campaigns, public institutions and governments can play an important role. Given the importance of olive oil sector in their socio-economic context, this is especially relevant for the case of Mediterranean olive oil producing countries. Therefore, public institutions are advised to collaborate with their own countries' olive oil sector.
