Language and advertising effectiveness: code-switching in the Korean marketplace

Abstract

Using two languages within an advertisement is increasing across many markets, throughout the world. By investigating code-switching effects between the Korean and English languages, this study is the first to directly test the Markedness Model perspective in the Korean marketplace. Furthermore, this study introduces a new type of code-switching (transliterated code-switching) between two alphabetic languages and assesses the impact of code-switching on advertising effectiveness across the different types. The results of Study 1 indicate that Korean–English (KE) code-switching and transliterated Korean–English (TL-KE) code-switching were significantly higher in attitude toward the slogan and product evaluation than English–Korean (EK) code-switching. However, there was no significant difference in the dependent variables between TL-KE and KE slogans. Study 2 tested the role of the perceived difficulty of the English words as a moderating variable. It was found that the KE slogan was more effective than the TL-KE slogan when difficult English words were embedded in the slogans, whereas no difference was found between the two slogans when the English words were perceived as easy. Implications for advertisers are presented and future research areas are discussed.

Keywords:

• advertising
• language
• code-switching
• transliteration
• Markedness Model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In a pilot study, an exploratory analysis of code-switching in a Korean magazine was undertaken. The unit of analysis was one full page ad and a total of 87 ads were assessed. For each ad, slogans and body copy were analyzed. The results supported the argument as not one ad included TL English-Korean (TL-EK) code switching, but the other three types were observed.

*색 is a Korean word for color.