Effects of Difficult and Easy English Slogans in Advertising for Dutch Consumers

The effectiveness of subtitles in cross‐cultural television commercials

“…These findings are in line with those of Hendrikx et al. (). Only the most complex slogan containing three relatively infrequent English words yielded significant lower scores for attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the product and purchase intention than all the other product slogans in the tested print advertisements.…”

“…We provided empirical evidence for the assertion that English words and phrases in advertising messages for non‐native speakers should not be too difficult (De Mooij, ; Domzal, Hunt, & Kernan, ). We further confirmed and extended the results of previous research on the effects of comprehension in the process of persuasion (Gerritsen et al., ; Hendrikx et al., ; Hornikx et al., ). We also broadened the findings of Pagani et al.…”

“…() and Hendriks et al. () showed that easy‐to‐understand slogans in print advertisements led to a better evaluation than difficult‐to‐understand slogans and also Gerritsen et al. () found a relation between comprehension of the advertising message and participants’ attitude towards the use of English.…”

“…The survey started with questions about the participants’ gender, age, and mother tongue. They also self‐assessed their English proficiency level (Hendriks et al., ) using the following 7‐point Likert item: My English proficiency is excellent (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree). Next, the participants indicated their familiarity with each brand on a 7‐point scale (1 = I don't know the brand at all and 7 = I know the brand very well).…”

“…Hendriks et al. () also found that difficult‐to‐understand English slogans negatively influenced the marketing effectiveness of the advertising campaign: they resulted in a lower attitude towards the ad and the product and in a lower purchase intention. The lower attitude and marketing effectiveness scores can be explained by the relevance theory of Sperber and Wilson ().…”