Aichner (2014) proposes a classification of ways in which brands communicate their country of origin (COO). The current, exploratory study is the first to empirically investigate the frequency with which brands employ such COO markers in magazine advertisements. An analysis of about 750 ads from the British, Dutch, and Spanish editions of Cosmopolitan showed that the prototypical ‘made in’ marker was rarely used, and that ‘COO embedded in company name’ and ‘use of COO language’ were most frequently employed. In all, 36% of the total number of ads contained at least one COO marker, underlining the importance of the COO construct.
Hornikx, J., Meurs, F. van, Janssen, A., & Heuvel, J. van den (2020). How brands highlight country of origin in magazine advertising: A content analysis. Journal of Global Marketing, 33 (1), 34-45.
This book presents a comprehensive account of the use and effects of foreign languages in advertising. Based on consumer culture positioning strategies in marketing, three language strategies are presented: foreign language display to express foreignness, English to highlight globalness, and local language to appeal to ethnicity (for instance, Spanish for Hispanics in the USA). The book takes a multidisciplinary approach, integrating insights from both marketing and linguistics, presenting both theoretical perspectives (e.g., Communication Accommodation Theory, Conceptual Feature Model, Country-of-origin effect, Markedness Model, Revised Hierarchical Model) and empirical evidence from content analyses and experimental studies. The authors demonstrate that three concepts are key to understanding foreign languages in advertising: language attitudes, language-product congruence, and comprehension. The book will appeal to students and researchers in the fields of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, marketing and advertising.
Hornikx, J., & Meurs, F. van (2020). Foreign languages in advertising: Linguistic and marketing perspectives. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan. [link]
“The book is very well structured, the index is comprehensive, and it is very useful … . It will constitute valuable reading both for beginners embarking on research and for experts from both linguistics and marketing looking for synergies between these two fields”
