A cross-cultural study towards the influence of the degree of verbal anchoring on Belgian and Dutch consumers’ perception of logos.

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2017-07-03
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en
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Abstract
Organisations generally aim to distinguish themselves from their competitors. One way of doing this is by endorsing corporate core values, which are occasionally integrated in the company logo. This research was meant to measure to what extent the degree of verbal anchoring influenced the recognition of core values within a logo and the evaluation of a logo by Dutch and Belgian consumers. The degree of verbal anchoring within two logos was manipulated in three levels: no verbal anchoring (logo), moderate verbal anchoring (logo and brand name) and total verbal anchoring (logo, brand name and slogan). There were participants of two nationalities, in order to examine whether there appeared to be a cultural difference in terms of the uncertainty avoidance dimension by Hofstede (1980) and how this affected the response to the logos. To measure uncertainty avoidance, a proxy, tolerance of ambiguity by McLain (2009), was used. Participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire, of which there were three versions that differed in degree of verbal anchoring. Results showed that the Belgians scored slightly higher on tolerance of ambiguity than the Dutch. The degree of verbal anchoring appeared to have minor influence on the participants’ ability to deduce the right core values from the logos. However, the attitudes towards the logos differed among the two nationalities. Belgians were more neutral than the Dutch, who were slightly negative.
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Faculteit der Letteren