Exploring the effectiveness of foreign brand communication: Consumer culture ad imagery and brand schema incongruity

Drawing from international branding literature and schema incongruity research, the present study (a) assesses foreign brand communication effectiveness by juxtaposing three alternative advertising approaches based on local, foreign and global consumer culture imagery, and (b) investigates the mechanism underlying consumers' responses to foreign brand communication. In a 2 (foreign brand schema vs. control) × 3 (local vs. foreign vs. global ad type) full-factorial, between-subjects experiment with a consumer sample, we find that ads portraying global consumer culture imagery only moderately violate consumer perceptions of brand foreignness and lead to more favorable ad attitudes. Furthermore, moderated-mediation analysis shows that when the global ad imagery is meaningfully linked to the foreign brand, perceptions of credibility increase and positively influence ad attitude. However, if consumers cannot make sense of the ad, this effect is reversed and negatively influences subsequent responses. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed and future research directions identified.