International Advertising in Western Europe: Should Differences in Uncertainty Avoidance be Considered when Advertising in Belgium, France, The Netherlands and Spain?

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate as to whether cultural differences necessi tate adaptation of advertisements to local circumstances in interna tional business communication. In particular, value appeals are thought to be culturally sensitive because cultures differ with respect to which values are considered important, and it is thought that appealing to important values is more persuasive than appealing to ones less impor tant. This article reports on an experiment in which the persuasiveness of an appeal to security was compared to that of an appeal to adven ture. The relative persuasiveness of these appeals was studied in coun tries (i.e., Belgium, France and Spain) that are characterized as high uncertainty avoidance cultures, and a country characterized as a low uncertainty avoidance culture: The Netherlands. Results showed that the two value appeals proved equally persuasive for all countries.