$*@^! Effects of swear words in a foreign language in advertising

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2020-06-08
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en
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Today, marketers are challenged to advertise in an increasingly cluttered media space (de Pelsmacker, Geuens & van den Bergh, 2013), which means creative advertising strategies are needed to appeal to consumers. Moreover, taking into account the rise of English as a global lingua franca, marketers also need to decide whether it may be useful to use English in advertisements outside of the Anglophone market. In particular, the emotional intensity with which consumers receive English advertisements when this is not their native language should be considered (Puntoni, de Langhe & van Osselaer, 2008). The present study combined these two current issues and examined a particular shock appeal, namely swearwords, in foreign language advertisements and its effects on consumers’ attitude towards the ad, purchase intention as well as perceptions of offensiveness, credibility and honesty. An online questionnaire with fictitious advertisements was used to conduct the experiment, in which 136 native German speakers participated. The findings revealed that swearwords affected participants’ perceptions of offensiveness, irrespective of the language of the ad. Since swearwords did not appear to influence participants’ responses in any other way, the findings suggest that this shock appeal is not a particularly effective strategy for influencing consumer responses to advertisements.
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