De Relatieve Overtuigingskracht van Waarde-appèls in Nederlandse en Spaanse Advertenties: Spelen Cultuurverschillen een Rol?

Cultures differ from each other with respect to the relative importance they attach to certain values. Since values play an important role in advertising, it is interesting to study whether appealing to a value that is important in one culture, but not in another culture, is more persuasive in the former culture than in the latter. Two different versions of an advertisement for a fictitious brand of watch were constructed in Dutch and then translated into Spanish. The first version of the ad appealed to values that are considered to be important in Dutch culture, i.e., 'adventure' and 'excitement'; the second version appealed to values that are assumed to be important in Spanish culture, i.e., 'security' and 'certainty'. Each version of the ad was judged by about 50 respondents in the Netherlands and in Spain. The results show that the ad appealing to security was more persuasive for people who value 'security' more than they value 'excitement', whereas the ad appealing to excitement was more persuasive for people who value 'excitement' more than 'security'. However, there was no interaction between the type of appeal and the nationality of the participants because the value hierarchies of the Spanish participants did not differ from those of the Dutch participants.