A two-nation experiment to investigate the relationships among national culture, individual-level cultural variables and consumer attitudes toward advertising websites and the brand

Abstract

This research investigated how the attitudes of Japanese and US consumers toward three types of advertiser websites, and their attitudes toward the brand advertised on them, compared to the attitudes of consumers with independent and interdependent self-construals toward the same websites and brand. The three types of websites were informative, socially interactive, and entertaining. Some of the results confirmed previous research; some did not. For example, Japanese consumers tend to have a more positive attitude than US consumers toward a socially interactive advertiser website; consumers with an interdependent self-construal also tended to have a more positive attitude toward the website. But regardless of the type of website, US consumers had a more positive attitude toward the brand. To some extent both national culture and individual-level variables were found to be useful predictor variables for consumer attitudes toward advertiser websites and brands. The results suggested numerous additional directions for further research.