Advertising to Bilinguals: Does the Language of Advertising Influence the Nature of Thoughts?
Published 9/1/2008
Author: Jaime Noriega and Edward Blair
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Executive Summary
A topic of interest in cross-cultural communication is the effects of language choice in advertising to bilinguals. Studies have found that language choice makes a difference in levels of acceptance, feelings of accommodation, and a general relatedness that is facilitated by the familiarity with the language. In this article, the authors consider a different perspective—namely, that different languages may cue different associations and thus influence response to advertising. The psycholinguistics literature has shown that context (the people, places, things, and symbols in the environment) can cue the language people use to communicate. From a marketer’s perspective, an important question is, Can language cue context? Given the growth of bilingual populations in the Untied States, the question whether language can cue context has special relevance. Many bilinguals in the United States live linguistically bifurcated lives. Their life at home, in their ethnic community, and with friends and family is experienced in their native language, whereas life at school, at work, and in the community at large is experienced in English. This duality of experiences may lead to distinct thoughts when faced with advertisements written in either of the two languages a bilingual is able to understand. This research considers whether it is possible that for a bilingual, the exact same selling message can cue different associations depending on the language in which it is presented? The underlying issue is whether advertisers can use language of execution as a strategic variable with which to generate certain types of associations to facilitate persuasion. By considering the consumption context associated with the product advertised, the authors depart from the existing streams of research on the subject, most of which at least imply that as long as the person’s level of acculturation facilitates understanding, a native language execution may be preferred, regardless of what is being advertised. Furthermore, as a practical matter, the choice of which language to use when communicating with a bilingual is only a choice if the bilingual in question actually consumes media in both languages. In this regard, a strong point of this research is that unlike many previous studies that have examined language choice and bilinguals, the current sampling methodology restricted the sample to adult bilinguals that actually consume print media in both languages and thus behave in such a way as to make the managerial implications of the research directly relevant. Ultimately, this research suggests that advertisers should consider the consumption context of the advertised offering when deciding which language to employ when advertising to bilinguals.
Biography
Jaime Noriega is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Commerce at DePaul University. His research interests include bilingual information processing, cross-cultural communication, bilingual memory, bilingual memory distortions, and public policy issues regarding ethnic marketing. Before entering academia Dr. Noriega worked in advertising as an account executive for Moroch & Associates, a McDonald’s Co-Op Agency, in which he was in charge of all local Hispanic marketing, advertising, and public relations. Dr. Noriega also worked in newspaper publishing for more than a decade and served on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Publishers as the Vice-President of Marketing, a post to which he was elected for two consecutive two-year terms. He received his PhD from the University of Houston in 2006.
Edward Blair is Michael J. Cemo Professor and Chair in the Department of Marketing & Entrepreneurship in the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. His research interests include survey research methods, behavioral pricing, and entrepreneurship and innovation. Dr. Blair is the author of numerous articles published in journals, such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, and Public Opinion Quarterly. He has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Business Research and as national conference chair for the American Marketing Association Educators’ Conference. He also has served as National Science Foundation panelist for Innovation and Organizational Change, as a member of the U.S. Census Bureau Advisory Committee, and currently as a member of the American Statistical Association/Department of Energy Committee on Energy Statistics. Dr. Blair received his PhD from the University of Illinois.
Journal of Marketing, Volume 72, Number 5, September 2008
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