English is one of the most spoken languages in the world. It is also the most frequently used language for marketing and communication campaigns. Everywhere we go we are being confronted with English phrases and slogans. A lot of slogans and text in ads that are being used for the Dutch market are in English as well.
Research by de Boer, Hornikx and van Meurs that was conducted in 2010 shows that the Dutch consumers better appreciate ads with easy to understand English slogans or text than ads with a slogan or text in their own language. Ads with harder to understand English slogans or text are appreciated the same as advertisements with Dutch slogans or text. The research did not focus on different types of product categories; they only used magazine ads for cars.
For the course research practicum BDM that I had to do for my pre-master, my teammates and me did more research on language use in advertising. We chose two different product categories: groceries/ household products and lifestyle products and searched for ads in those categories in both English and Dutch. Students of Tilburg University gave their opinion in a questionnaire on all the slogans and text in the chosen ads.
English
versus Dutch
The results of the research are that the ads with English slogans or text are better appreciated in both categories than the Dutch ads. Does this mean that we like English better than our own language? Maybe a good research subject for my master thesis next year.
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