Does a Foreign Accent Sell? The Effect of Foreign Accents in Radio Commercials for Congruent and Non-Congruent Products

Berna Hendriks; Frank van Meurs; Els van der Meij

doi:10.1515/multi-2013-0048

Article

Does a Foreign Accent Sell? The Effect of Foreign Accents in Radio Commercials for Congruent and Non-Congruent Products

Berna Hendriks , Frank van Meurs and Els van der Meij

Published/Copyright: August 22, 2014

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From the journal Multilingua Volume 34 Issue 1

Abstract

Commercials regularly feature foreign accents. This paper aims to investigate whether the use of foreign accents in radio commercials is more effective for congruent than incongruent products, and whether foreign-accented commercials are evaluated differently than non-accented commercials. In an experiment, a group of 228 Dutch participants rated non-accented and accented commercials for four different products in a between-subject design. The products were either congruent or incongruent with the foreign accent in the commercial (e.g. a German-accented commercial for sausage vs. olive oil). Foreign-accented commercials for congruent products were assessed more positively on a number of variables than foreign-accented commercials for incongruent products. Foreign-accented commercials were rated more negatively than commercials without a foreign accent.

Keywords: foreign accent; radio commercials; product fit; persuasion; language attitudes; language expectancy theory

Acknowledgments

We thank voice casting agency Stemmenbank.nl for recording the radio commercials used in this study. We also thank an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Appendix

1. Buying this product is:
[purchase intention]
something I certainly want to do	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	something I never want to do
really something for me	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	really not somethingfor me
2. I believe this commercial is:
[Attitude toward commercial]
not nice	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	nice
captivating	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	boring
not original	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	original
not attractive	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	attractive
interesting	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not interesting
[comprehensibility commercial]
comprehensible	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not comprehensible’.
3. I believe this product is:
[Attitude toward product]
not nice	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	nice
captivating	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	boring
not original	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	original
not attractive	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	attractive
interesting	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not interesting
4. I believe this speaker is:
[Attitude toward speaker]
[Affect]
friendly	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not friendly
sociable	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not sociable
good-natured	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not good-natured
honest	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not honest
helpful	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not helpful
[Competence]
intelligent	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not intelligent
trained	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not trained
reliable	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not reliable
trustworthy	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	not trustworthy

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Received: 2013-11-1

Accepted: 2014-6-10

Published Online: 2014-8-22

Published in Print: 2015-1-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2013-0048

Keywords for this article

foreign accent; radio commercials; product fit; persuasion; language attitudes; language expectancy theory