Tuning into bicultural minorities in Europe: Acculturation and advertising avoidance

Understanding the factors that influence consumers’ attention to advertising has become increasingly important in the search for new strategies to break through ‘advertising clutter’ (e.g., Pieters, Warlop & Wedel, 2002). This has become particularly relevant since an increase in clutter has been associated with advertising avoiding behaviors (Cho & Cheon, 2004). Although some advertising avoidance studies entail cross-national comparisons of culturally distinct markets (Zhang & Neelankavil, 1997; Lau-Gesk, 2003),most research encompasses socio-demographic explanations for advertising avoidance and overlooks cultural variances in advertising avoidance and attention. This contribution intends to fill this gap, by focusing on the growing segment of bicultural consumers in Europe (Lau-Gesk, 2003) and their self-reported advertising attention and avoidance. This study contributes to the ongoing standardization versus adaptation debate in international marketing: while some studies find advertising more effective when symbols, characters and values are drawn from the intended audience’s cultural background and call for targeted advertisements (e.g.,Appiah, 2001), other studies show that biculturals develop several cultural dispositions enabling them to switch between cultures (Lau-Gesk, 2003) and making them apt for both standardized and adjusted advertisements appealing to divergent values (Chang, 2006). Moreover, bicultural individuals differ in their ability to create a synergistic, integrated cultural identity (Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2007) and are prone to show diverging advertising avoidance behaviors according to their level of acculturation. By means of an online sample of 4,984 consumers from Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and the United States of America (MetrixL ab, 2013), general comparisons between ethnic minority and majority consumers are made, alongside specific analyses of the acculturation strategies adopted by ethnic minorities. Drawing on dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) we expect higher levels of advertising avoidance among ethnic minority consumers than their majority counterparts, as they are more likely to encounter difficulty in relating to mainstream advertising messages (cfr. Wang & Mowen, 1997). Following acculturation theory (Berry, 1997) we focus on various segments of ethnic minority consumers and expect lowest advertising avoidance (and highest attention) among those minorities who perceive their mainstream and ethnic cultural identities as compatible and integrated. In contrast to our first hypothesis, our analyses indicate that both ethnic minority and majority respondents are equally inclined to physically zap, click away or turn off media and ignore or block commercial information cognitively. However, our second hypothesis is confirmed by a significant effect of acculturation on both physically avoiding and cognitively blocking out advertising, with lowest advertising avoidance among integrated biculturals. Similarly, acculturation strategies significantly affect the attention paid to advertising, with integrated biculturals portraying the highest level of advertising attention. This study demonstrates that with ongoing globalization and an increase of intercultural contact, current segmentation techniques and reach figures based on socio-demographic variables, need to be revisited in light of the emerging bicultural identities among consumers. Implications for practitioners and further research directions regarding acculturation and advertising avoidance and/or attention are discussed.status: publishe