Abstract
Practitioners and academics agree that packaging is a communication tool that impacts marketing success. This paper focuses on a specific cue incorporated in product packaging: the use of supplementary unconventional lettering, such as Arabic characters, on a product package with English. Building on the theory of Foreign Language Display, the use of unconventional lettering that is congruent with the product is expected to be favorable if it is interpreted as a quality cue. Additionally, familiarity with the product category moderates this relationship. This paper discusses empirical studies carried out in a developed economy and a developing economy.
Notes
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive feedback provided by an anonymous reviewer. We also would like to acknowledge the assistance of Ms. Zatega in conducting the empirical studies in Austria. Lastly, the second author would like to thank Associate Professor Dr.Kritsadarat Wattanasuwan for her insightful comment for our project.
Declarations of interest
None
Notes
1 The complete stimulus material is available upon request from the authors.
2 After data collection completion we discovered that some research assistants in Thailand approached respondents with screens which might have been too small to clearly perceive the foreign lettering. As a result we had to exclude quite a number of observations.