Author(s): Imhanrenialena Benedict Ogbemudia, Agbaeze Emmanuel Kalu, Obi-Anike Happiness Ozioma, Okafor Chikodili Nkiru
In advertising foreign products in local markets, advertisements makers are faced the challenge of choosing between the standardization strategy and the adaption strategy of foreign advertisements to increase foreign product sales performance in local markets. However, studies on non-indigenous language texts display in foreign advertisements in local markets in several countries have yielded conflicting results. Therefore, this exploratory study investigated Nigerian consumers’ non-indigenous language texts identification ability in foreign product advertisements; whether Nigerian consumers associate foreign products to certain countries in term of superior performance; and how such country-product-association influenced Nigerian consumers’ purchase intention. With a sample of 81 participants aged 23 to 60, the findings reveals that: (1) Nigerian consumers are unable to identify non-indigenous language texts in foreign product advertisements, (2) Nigerian consumers associate certain foreign products to certain countries in term of superior performance, (3) that such country-product-association influenced Nigerian consumers’ purchase intention. A country-product-association that is new to advertising literature was found as the participants associate the African wax prints to Holland. The study highlighted the impediments that advertisements makers have to resolve to increase sales performances of foreign products in Nigerian local markets.