Abstract:
The current study presents an experiment exploring the effect foreign language in advertising has on the ad effectiveness for two types of products. Exploring this influence is scientifically relevant as there is a global trend nowadays according to which many companies apply foreign languages in their marketing strategies. Whether this strategy influences the ad effectiveness is, however, not entirely clear as different studies report different findings. The present experiment took place in the Netherlands, thus the first language (L1) applied in the research was Dutch and the foreign language was decided to be English (L2). The product types were chosen according to the Foote, Cone, and Belding (FCB) grid – high involvement thinking and high involvement feeling products in order to stimulate the central route regarding information processing. The ad effectiveness was measured through consumers’ self-reported buying intention, attitude towards the ad and ad emotionality.
