A test of ad appeal effectiveness in Poland and the United States - The interplay of appeal, product, and culture

In this research we extend previous literature by analyzing responses to different ad appeals designed for different product types in Poland and the United States. We found that in the United States, responses to appeals can be predicted based on consumer cultural and product characteristics. For Polish consumers, reactions to ads depended only on product characteristics. The results of the study also show that when targeting consumers in both countries, marketers may standardize ad appeals by using functional appeals (which stress product attributes) across different product types. Finally, the study implies that some marketing models used in Western studies may not be transferable to some Eastern European countries, and therefore more research in this area is needed.