Tiffany Oaks
Present day English is enormously influential in the international business world. This is evident in continental Europe, not only in the marketing of products originating from countries whose first language is English, but sometimes also in the marketing of products originating in countries whose first language is not English. In Austria, for example, many Austrian companies give their products English names. The reason behind this deserves some exploration. It might be assumed to be the result of prestige accompanying American English, perhaps conveying associations of ingenuity, dependability and wealth.
Historically, it has happened that certain languages acquire prestige in particular semantic domains. For example, French has long been a prestige language in the semantic domains of food and fashion, just as Italian has been the prestige language in music. Given the use of English in the product naming of so many products in Vienna, Austria, we might wonder whether English has developed a similar kind of prestige in some product domains. If English has developed such a positive association in the minds of the Viennese, it is logical that these perceptions would also carry over into the purchasing habits of the Viennese.
This presentation will explore the effect of the use of English for the brand names of Viennese products as evident in the influence these product names have on consumers’ perceptions and their purchasing habits involving these products.
The data involves surveys of a random sample of the Viennese population, as well as a random sample of a Swiss population in order to compare the Viennese results with those of a group who do not recognize the Viennese brand names. The research subjects were male and female native Viennese and residents of Luzern, Switzerland, with ages ranging from 18-60. The study sampled about 200 individuals. In some cases specific surveys were not able to be utilized (for example when a survey wasn’t completed) thus the results that I will show will reflect the responses of 170 individuals. Special consideration was also taken of the subjects’ English proficiency level.
When I arrived in Vienna, I noticed that English was used in just about every form of advertising and marketing. Names of shops such as “Big Net,” ….. were scattered across the streets. One of the newest fads for cars is the “Smart Car,” which is a European car made by a Swiss company. I asked an advertising teacher in Vienna if the name of the car was in English to give it associations of England or American. He told me that it was definitely to make it sound American, and that advertisers wanted everything to sound American because American things are perceived as trendy. Logos, billboards, magazines, public transportation ads, product names, and names of stores had plenty of English. In order to narrow my research and find out how much of a prestige form English was to the Viennese, I focused on names of products found in grocery stores.
14 items were selected, with 3 different brand names per product. Regarding each set of brand names, sometimes there were 2 German product names and 1 English name, sometimes there were 2 English names and 1 German name, and sometimes there was 1 German name, 1 English name, and 1 name with a mixture of German and English. The goal was to find out which of the three was the most prestigious form: English, German, or an English-German blend. (Show transparency #1 of survey here and go through each question).
One obstacle in attaining the desired information was that there were many variables involved in the Respondents’ susceptibility to select each product—- such as price, quality, and the level of recognition based on advertising of the product. Although I could not completely control these variables, I took a few precautions in order to better isolate the role of the English language itself. One of these precautions was to look at not only common products used on a daily basis that the respondents would definitely recognize the names to, such as toilette paper, shower gel, and sandwich bread, but also to consider items that were used less often, such as bathroom cleaner, canned clams, and frozen French fries (something the Viennese would not eat nearly as often as Americans because of the huge emphasis on health in their society). Another precaution I took was to try to select products with very similar prices. But this also proved to be difficult in some cases, because often there were only 3 or 4 options to choose from, but luckily, I was able to find at least 2 of the 3 brand-names with approximately equal retail value. Although there are many variables involved in which products they would select, by using a large range of grocery and household items, I made the data more representative of language trends.
Another obstacle to my research was avoiding the respondents circling the answers that they thought I was looking for. I knew that if the people suspected the nature of what I was studying and assumed that it involved identifying brand names with English features, this might unduly influence the responses that they gave, so I attempted to survey them in a way in which they would circle the first thing that caught their attention or that they recognized. In order to get my respondents to answer on impulse, I surveyed them in places where I knew they would be in a hurry. In Vienna most of the surveys were conducted on subways downtown, and many of them were conducted on buses or streetcars. I simply went to each grouping of seats and said in German “I have to do a survey for school. Do you mind filling it out? It will only take a minute.” If they told me they had to get off in 2 stops, I would smile and tell them that it would not take more than 2 minutes, and that I would really appreciate their help. Most of the respondents had to rush to fill it out before their stop, and did not care what the survey was for or what it was about. Most of the respondents actually handed me the surveys just as they were getting off. Another precaution I took to avoid having the respondents think about the purpose of the survey was to put the demographic question of English fluency at the very end. Only two respondents asked me if it was about English, and only because they were not as rushed as the others.
In order to overcome the obstacle of not knowing how much each product had been advertised or how much people would recognize it for reasons other than the language of the brand-name, I took the same survey to Switzerland. This also took out the variables of quality and price, because the people did not know anything about most of the products. I asked about a dozen people how many of the brand-names they recognized, and they only recognized a few. Most of the people I stopped actually told me they could not do the survey because they did not recognize any of the names. But I explained that that did not matter, that it would only take a minute, and to circle whichever brand name they would be most likely to buy going just by the name. I did not have the luxury of subways and public transportation, so instead I conducted my surveys just outside of shopping centers, so that people hurrying to get through their shopping list, or people too tired to do a long survey on their way out would fill it out quickly to get it over with. This could have problems of its own, but it seemed better than other alternatives.
The first two questions of the survey were demographic questions of age and gender, so I could find which of these two factors played a greater role in susceptibility to select English products. Swiss females were the group to select the greatest amount of English brand names. 52% of Swiss women 18-29 and 49% of Swiss women 30-50 selected names with English or an English/German blend. The group with the next greatest amount was Swiss men: 49% of 18-29 Swiss males and 46% of males 30-50 selected English names. The next group was Viennese 18-29 males: 48%, whereas Viennese males 30-50 had the lowest percentage of all– 41%. 47% of Viennese females 18-30 selected English, and 42% of Viennese females 18-30.
Perhaps the reason for the greater percentage of English names selected among 18-29 year olds stems from the fact that English is trendier among this age group, because of media influences such as Hollywood movies, and even more so with pop-music, which is not translated as are the movies. This age group has also had more exposure to English than the older generation.
The fact that each of the 4 Swiss categories selected more English than their Viennese counterparts, likely shows that the variables other than language are the cause of lower percentages among the Viennese. Once again, the Swiss group is the group that does not recognize the brand-names and selected names solely on the basis of the name itself. They made selections without pre-conceived notions of better quality or name-recognition due to advertising. The effect of these outside variables is very apparent in the selections of the Viennese women in the 30-50 age group. It is logical that they are very affected by the variables because they are more familiar with the different brand-names, because this is likely the group of people doing the most shopping in grocery stores. One example of this is the question of ketchup. The three options were Heinz, Felix-Austria, and Thomy. 96% of the Swiss chose Heinz, whereas only 35% of the Viennese chose Heinz. This is one of the few products that the Swiss recognized, which is why so many of them chose it.
The greatest variable involved seemed to be name-recognition, as shown in the differences between the Swiss and Austrian survey results. The average amount of product names with English chosen by the Swiss was 55%, whereas the average amount chosen by the Viennese was 50%. The next greatest variable was Age. The next was Gender, and the least was English Proficiency, which showed no great trends. English proficiency was actually the least helpful in the study, because their actual proficiency could not be tested, only what they perceived themselves to be. The one group that stood above the rest in Proficiency level though, was the group that knew “Some” English. They were about 5% higher than those who claimed to speak English well or fluently, and 3% higher than those who spoke almost no English.
The three companies with the highest profits in the year 2005 were Red Bull, Svarovski jewels, and Spar, a grocery chain. Spar is one of the food-chains (like Western family), that I noticed used a lot of English. They have products with names such as that say things like “American Style Orange Soda,” “American style Barbeque Chips,” “American Style marshmallows,” and “American Style Sandwich Bread.” I would not go as far as to say that they are the company with the third highest profits in Austria because they use a lot of English, but I would say that the fact that such a successful company opts to use so much English in their advertising must be representative of some level of prestige. This also shows that they are targeting American connotations, and not British ones. Red Bull, an internationally marketed product, is actually a product from Austria. This drink was started by an Austrian man in 1984 , who targeted his marketing to the younger generation, which is probably why he used the English name. I found countless other examples of Austrian products with English names or logos. I even found a water bottle with the logo “a Better You Adventure,” which does not even make sense, but shows that the advertisers placed a greater importance on using English than on fact or practicality.
One example from my products that had a lower level of interfering variables was the brand names I selected for toast bread. One brand name, Anker, is the bread manufactured by one of the most popular bakery chains in Vienna, and which also ships toast bread to grocery stores. I expected this brand to be the most favored. The other two choices were Olz Toast Brot, and Super Sammy’s Sandwich Bread, which is also manufactured by Olz, and varies from Olz Toast Brot by only about 10 Euro cents. (Look that up). This bread has a picture of Uncle Sam and is covered in red and white stripes and stars: something that definitely gives it American connotations and not British connotations. Surprisingly, the most popular bread among the Viennese was Sammy’s Super Sandwich Bread. Even though it was almost the same bread, with almost the same price, and made by the same company, the English brand name was the most popular, even more so than Anker. The Swiss had the same trend.
English-German blends were favored in some product names and not in others. In one question of Clams, there was a German, and English, and a German-English blend. For all categories, the German/English blend was the most favored, and for all categories other than Viennese men, the pure English name was the second most favored. Another question to compare the favorability of English/German Blends with German and English was the question of Bathroom Cleaner. For Swiss Men and Women and Viennese Women, the blend “Meister Proper” was the most favored and the plain English name was the second most favored. But for the Viennese men, the plain English name was the most favored and the English-German blend was the second most favored. But in a question of cereals, the English-German blend was the least favored, by a large margin, ranging from 5.77% for Viennese Women to 22.22% for Swiss men.