Culturally incongruent messages in international advertising

Geng Cui, Xiaoyan Yang, Haizhong Wang and Hongyan Liu

This study investigates the effect of culturally incongruent messages in international advertising on consumer responses.

Culturally incongruent messages in international advertising

Geng Cui

Lingnan University and Guangdong University of Foreign Studies

Xiaoyan Yang

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies

Haizhong Wang

Sun Yat-Sen University

Hongyan Liu

Jinan University

Introduction

The effectiveness of international advertising is of strategic importance and critical for the success of multinational corporations (MNCs). Given the tremendous cultural differences among societies, standardised international advertising may be incongruent with the cultural values of host societies and not well received by local consumers. Thus, the state-of-the-art knowledge suggests that marketers should adopt culturally congruent messages when promoting their products in other countries, because messages that...

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