Damn, that’s appealing! A study on the effectiveness of Dutch and English swear words in advertisements targeted at young, Dutch audiences.
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2021-02-26
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en
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This study explored differences in the effectiveness of the use Dutch and English swear words in beer advertisements (ads) targeted at young Dutch audiences. The experiment had a mixed design with two levels of the between-subjects factor language used (Dutch (L1)/English(L2)) and three levels of within-subjects factor swear word used (‘Damn’ - ‘Verdomme’/‘Crap’ - ‘Kak’/ ‘Ass’ - ‘Reet’). Participants encounter either three Dutch or three English advertisements. The 148 participants rated the advertisements’ language associations, perceived shock, perceived emotionality, attitude towards the ad, purchase intention and recall of the ad, perceived dynamism, likeliness to encounter the ad in real life. Results showed a significant between-subjects difference for the different language groups (L1/L2) for perceived shock. The study explored correlations between the dependent variables and provided indications that English swear words could potentially outperform Dutch swearwords in terms of advertising effectiveness in certain circumstances.
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