H2: The commercials communicate different levels of source credibility

73

that particular accent (Bruce, 2010). The reason stereotypes can transfer to brands when hearing an accent is because linguistic cues is an important factor when determining the brand’s origin (Usunier, 2011), and the perceived brand origin is one of the most influential factors affecting brand attitudes (Magnusson et al., 2011). If this logic is correct, the population in this study should have associative networks in which they have stored American as competent, exciting and upper-class, British as sincere and charming and Australian as rugged. These associations are connected to the accent and when seeing and hearing the commercial, the associations are part in forming the brand image and conclusively the brand personality.

Why the results found in this study do not fully accord with previous research on stereotypes can depend on a couple of factors. Firstly, the research on stereotypes used as a reference in this study cannot be seen as generalisable to all populations. Since this study, compared to previous studies on stereotypes, was conducted only on a Swedish audience, the cultural associations towards countries and languages may be different. Hence, the stereotypes a Swedish population perceives are not necessarily the same as for the previously tested populations. Another reason could be that previous research on stereotypes is concerned with spokesperson and not brand. The differences in result might be explained by the stereotypes not being fully transferable to brands. What stereotypes the respondents apply to the different brands is however a subordinate analysis since the aim of the study was not to find absolute personality score of the different language varieties, but rather to find possible differences between the them.

6.1.2. H2: THE COMMERCIALS COMMUNICATE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF SOURCE

74

H2a: The Swedish commercial communicates a source credibility level different from the English commercials

Because source credibility consist of several traits, multiple sub-hypotheses are tested to form an overall conclusion (see Table 8). Firstly, the overall concept of source credibility is tested, but no difference between the languages can be seen. Looking at the credibility traits, however, reveals a couple of differences. While trustworthiness is the same for the two languages, the brand is perceived to possess greater expertise if the spokesperson in the commercial speaks English rather than Swedish (p=0.006).

Looking at the last credibility trait, attractiveness, the result show that the brand is perceived as more attractive if the commercial is in Swedish compared to when it is in English (p=0.003).

Figure 19. Comparison of languages in terms of source credibility. Y-axis showing Kruskal-Wallis mean rank value.

EXPERTISE

SOURCE CREDIBILITY

TRUSTWORTHINESS ATTRACTIVENESS

Significantly higher than the other language Significantly lower than the other language Not significantly different from the other language

75

From the above result, H2a is not supported. The two languages are perceived credible in different ways (i.e. Swedish being attractive and English being competent), but none of the two languages can be seen to be more credible than another on an overall level. A presentation of the results can be found in Figure 19 and Table 8.

Table 8. Display of what credibility perceptions the languages evoke.

Different English accents

In order to test whether consumers get a different perception of source credibility depending on the English accent spoken in the commercial, the following hypothesis was tested:

H2b: At least one of the English commercials communicates a source credibility level different from the other(s)

Just as when testing H2a, multiple sub-hypotheses were created in order to detect potential differences in the traits of source credibility (See Table 9). The results show a difference in overall credibility between the accents (p=0.031). Going into the Dunn-Bonferroni post-hoc test, i.e. the pairwise comparison of the different accents, it turns out that it is Australian that is less credible than British (p=0.072) and American (p=0.061). The pairwise differences can, however, only be confirmed on a 10% significance level. Taking a closer look at the credibility traits, there is a difference in trustworthiness in terms of American being

SWEDISH COMMERCIAL

BRAND PERSONALITY TRAIT SIGN. DIFFERENCE

Source credibility Trustworthiness Expertise Attractiveness

ENGLISH COMMERCIALS

BRAND PERSONALITY TRAIT SIGN. DIFFERENCE

Source credibility Trustworthiness Expertise Attractiveness

Significantly higher than the other language Significantly lower than the other language Not significantly different from the other language

76

more trustworthy than Australian (p=0.001). While there is no difference in expertise, the commercials result in different levels of attractiveness with British being more attractive than Australian (p=0.021).

It can be concluded that H2b is supported, however only on a 10% significance level. Except from for the trait expertise, there are differences in source credibility depending on what accent is used in the commercial. A presentation of the results can be found in Figure 20 and Table 9.

Figure 20. Comparison of accents in terms of source credibility. Y-axis showing Kruskal-Wallis mean rank value.

Table 9. Display of what credibility perceptions the accents evoke.

EXPERTISE

SOURCE CREDIBILITY

TRUSTWORTHINESS ATTRACTIVENESS

BRITISH COMMERCIAL

BRAND PERSONALITY TRAIT SIGN. DIFFERENCE

Source credibility Trustworthiness Expertise Attractiveness

AMERICAN COMMERCIAL BRAND PERSONALITY TRAIT SIGN. DIFFERENCE

Source credibility Trustworthiness Expertise Attractiveness

AUSTRALIAN COMMERCIAL BRAND PERSONALITY TRAIT SIGN. DIFFERENCE

Source credibility Trustworthiness Expertise Attractiveness

Significantly higher than at least one other accent Significantly lower than at least one other accent Not significantly different from the other accents

Significantly higher than at least one other accent Significantly lower than at least one other accent Not significantly different from the other accents

77

Conclusion: H2 is supported because there is evidence for differences in source credibility between the different English commercials. There is however no evidence for difference in source credibility between Swedish and English.

Analysis H2

Even though H2a is not supported and no difference is found in overall credibility when comparing Swedish and English, some interesting results can be discussed. For example, the result that expertise is rated higher for the English commercials is consistent with the result on brand personality, saying that English is perceived as more competent, since “expertise” and “competence” are actually synonyms.

While the Brand Personality Scale is proven applicable on brands (Aaker, 1997), the concept of Source Credibility (Ohanian, 1990; 1991) is not. The fact that results of the two concepts show coherence, supports the use of source credibility traits as descriptions of brands. Moreover, Birch & McPhail (1999) explain that the domestic accent (Australian in their study) is perceived more favourably than the foreign accents (American and British), this result is to some extent supported in this study since Swedish is perceived as more socially attractive. The fact that Swedish is considered more attractive is also consistent with Cialdini’s (2010) research that people tend to favour things that are similar to themselves.

H2b is however supported and differences in credibility is found comparing the different English accents, since Australian is perceived less credible than both British and American. American is particularly rated higher on the trait trustworthiness while British is perceived as being more attractive. The differences found in source credibility are, just like for brand personality, a result of the associative networks that are stimulated by the stimulus of an accent (Heding et al., 2016). What is associated with the accents is likely a result of the preconceptions the individuals have with the countries from which they perceive the spokesperson is from, since linguistic cues are the key determinants when determining the perceived brand origin (Usunier, 2011). What nationalities are considered credible is subjective. Other indications of source credibility is the standardness of the accent spoken (Tsalikis et al., 2013), whereas a standard accent generally results in higher source credibility in general and especially when it comes to expertise and trustworthiness (Reinares-Lara et al., 2016). Looking beyond accent standardness, Birch and McPhail (1999) suggest that hearing a spokesperson speaking the domestic language should result in a higher rated credibility. Even though Birch and McPhail’s study is conducted on an Australian population, comparing

78

different English accents, indications can be made to this study in which Swedish should be perceived as being more credible. Following the logic of Reinares-Lara (2016) and Birch and McPhail (1999), Swedish should have been rated higher than English in terms of credibility, since it is the domestic language and thus standard. This means that the results of this study contradicts previous research. One reason could be that previous studies too naïvly generalise their tested accent to being standard. Another explanatory factor could be that other advertised products were tested and on another audience. If assuming the results of Reinares-Lara et al. (2016) were applicable on this study concerning the three different English accents, it would mean that American should be considered more credible. This turns out to hold true (at least compared to Australian) and the discrepancies from previous literature might not be as big as it first seemed.