The Effects of Pictorial-Based Homophones in English on Thai Consumer Judgements
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Abstract
Priming has been one of tools utilized for guiding customer thoughts in marketing research. This study aims to explore priming in the aspect of integration between linguistics and marketing. The objectives are to investigate the effects of pictorial-based homophone priming on the purchase decisions of Thai consumers for products advertised in English, and to examine the level of priming effectiveness among Thai speakers of English, with comparison to native English speakers. Through three experiments investigating three pictorial homophones “sail-sale”, “deer-dear”, and “hole-whole”, 30 Thai speakers of English’s rating data indicating purchase decision were collected by an interview after advertisement exposure. The rating data were analyzed by t-test and Mann-Whitney U test. The results found that priming effects were portrayed in the experiments of “deer-dear” and “hole-whole” and their willingness to pay was significantly increased. The figure of “deer” could activate perceptions of love and value towards a product, derived from “deer” as a complementary item. Likewise, the appearance of “hole” created a sense of the whole, which was from the complementary item in the pair, and could persuade them to select a group of products rather than a single product. After all, Thai speakers of English manifested lower degree of priming effects in all aspects compared to native English speakers, due to the factors of L1 interference and word frequency.
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