Effects of culturally verbal and visual congruency/incongruency across cultures in a competitive advertising context

Abstract

Existing consumer behavior theories suggest that consumers tend to recognize, better comprehend, and respond favorably to information that is both relevant and consistent with their beliefs and values. This study extends these theories by employing cultural arguments and pictures to examine the effects of culturally verbal and visual congruency/incongruency on consumer ad and brand attitudes in multiple-ad and multiple-brand environments. The studies were conducted with subjects in Canada and China. The results suggest that, when the contrast ad is culturally incongruent, an ad containing a culturally congruent argument and congruent picture elicits the most positive responses, compared to other ads with different combinations of arguments and pictures. However, an ad containing a culturally incongruent argument and incongruent picture also elicits more positive responses than an ad with a culturally congruent argument and incongruent picture or a culturally incongruent argument and congruent picture.