Crossing the cultural divide through bilingual advertising: The moderating role of brand cultural symbolism

ABSTRACT This research examines the roles of brand cultural symbolism and advertising type (i.e., bilingual vs. host country language) in influencing brand liking among biculturals (people who equally identify with two distinct cultures). Across four experiments, we show that a brand's cultural symbolism moderates the impact of bilingual advertising (vs. English-language advertising) on brand liking among biculturals. Brands high in cultural symbolism are appealing to biculturals, while brands low in cultural symbolism can appeal to some types of biculturals by engaging in bilingual advertising. This research also highlights the role of bicultural identity integration as a key process mechanism that mediates these effects. We demonstrate that when people are reminded of similarities to their ethnic and mainstream cultures, they react more favorably to a bilingual ad than an English ad, but only for a less symbolic brand. When people are reminded of differences in their ethnic and mainstream cultures, advertising type has no significant effect on their brand evaluations.