Abstract

This study tries to understand how the bilinguals in Canada show differential responses to questionnaires and advertisements in the two languages. Three essays are developed in this regard. In the first essay, acculturation to the two cultures, as shown by the bilingual English and French Canadians, was studied. A common factorial structure with three correlated factors- English/French Media use, English/French social interaction, and English/French cultural attachment emerged from this analysis. The effects of ethnicity and language of questionnaire on these factors were then analyzed. Overall advertising involvement with informative and emotional advertisements was then studied in the second essay. A common structure of the advertising involvement concept was proposed for the four conditions- the two language version responses by these two ethnic groups. The effects of ethnicity and language of questionnaire were then observed. This essay also developed path models for the causal relationship involving advertising involvement, brand attitudes, and behavioral intentions, and looked into the differences between first and second language responses. The third essay took a neuroscience approach to look into advertising involvement. This essay took three different strategies to analyze EEG brain signals and explained how the differences between advertisements viewed in the first and/or second languages can be explained. Advertising involvement as explained in the marketing literature and neuroscience do not always converge. This third essay worked to find a common ground in this regard.