Abstract

The research reported herein examines the two-sided versus one-sided advertising strategy from a cross-cultural perspective. It aims to help clarify conflicting findings in cross-cultural research with this form of appeal, as well as develop a model of the moderating effect of culture on the underlying mediational processes, namely, the formation of correspondent inferences and cognitive responding. A number of hypotheses are generated to explicitly examine the relationship between the cultural dimension of individualism-collectivism and dispositional attributions, source honesty, types of cognitive responses, and attitude toward the brand, following exposure to two-sided versus one-sided messages. An experiment was carried out in which subjects from a collectivist culture, namely, Hong Kong, and subjects from an individualistic culture, namely, Anglo Canadians, were exposed to one-sided and two-sided messages in their native languages. The results of the research indicate that there are significant interactions with respect to certain of the cognitive responses generated as well as a significant main effect of culture on the formation of dispositional attributions. From the point of view of the favorability of the cognitive responses generated, the findings point to two-sided advertisements as being more effective than their one-sided counterparts for individualists; while the reverse occurred with the collectivist subjects. Directional support was also obtained with respect to attitude toward the primary attribute and attitude toward the brand. The primary implication is that the two-sided message strategy is more applicable for individualist societies such as mainstream North America, but it may be counterproductive if exported to collectivists societies such as China or Japan.