Språkvalets inverkan på effektiviteten av tryckta produktannonser
Although English is commonly used in Swedish advertising, little is known about its effects. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how a Swedish or English language choice in product advertisements affects the effectiveness of the ad. Further, a local/global dimension of the advertisement was created to investigate how the results differ for local and global brands. Subsequently, an experiment was conducted where the effect of language choice on several well-established measures of ad effectiveness such as awareness, comprehension of the ad message, credibility, attitude and buying intentions was analyzed. In line with previous research, English in product advertisements is not completely comprehended since English is not the local language in Sweden. The results of awareness show no clear evidence that either of the languages elicits higher attention. An interesting finding is that an incongruent language choice can have positive effects on consumers' attitudes and even on their purchase intentions. The results reveal several other interesting findings that are an important contribution to this research field. However, since the area is rather unexplored, further research is needed to investigate whether the results can be generalized to other product categories and well-known brands.