Foreign-Branding, Product Evaluations, and Brand Image: An Experiment on Brand Pronunciation in Thailand

Abstract

The use of foreign branding has become a popular strategy to employ on local products. A betweensubjects experimental design involving a total of 80 Thai participants was conducted to examine the effects of foreign branding on consumers product evaluations and attitudes toward the brand. Foreign branding was manipulated as English and Thai pronunciation of six fictitious brand names. The results indicate that English pronunciation fostered higher perceptions of product hedonism, regardless of whether the product is actually hedonic, hybrid or utilitarian, suggesting that such foreign branding may offer inherently greater emotional meaning across all product types as compared to Thai brands. Furthermore, English pronunciation created more favorable overall attitudes toward the brand and brand name as compared to the Thai pronunciation across all three product types.