Foreign branding: examining relationship between language and International Brand Evaluations

In Latin-American markets, the choice of foreign brand names is very popular in a variety of product classes. We investigate this phenomenon extending LeClerc et al. (1989, 1994) original work on foreign branding effects in the context of a developing Latin American country, such as Chile. In this paper, we have used two foreign languages, French and English and a different home country language– Spanish–, thus extending the original US-based study. In general, results are consistent with those of studies conducted by LeClerc et al. However, in the case of Chile, foreign branding, in particular English branding, generates better results across all product categories (hedonic, hybrid, and functional).