Your ethnic model speaks to the culturally connected: Differential effects of model ethnicity in advertisements and the role of cultural self construal
This paper examines self construal and consumer self referencing as a mechanism for explaining ethnicity effects in advertising. Data were collected from a 2 (participant ethnicity: Turkish versus Kurdish) x 2 (model ethnicity: Turkish versus Kurdish) x 2 (self construal: independent versus interdependent) experiment. Results show that (i) individuals with interdependent self construal display more positive evaluations towards an in group ethnic ad model than do individuals with independent self construal; (ii) ethnic minority individuals (Kurdish people) self referenced more advertising portrayals of models of a similar ethnicity than models of a different ethnicity, as did ethnic majority individuals (Turkish people) (iii) ethnic minority individuals who experienced high levels of self referencing exhibited more favourable attitude towards the advertisement, attitude towards the brand and a higher purchase intention than ethnic minority individuals who experienced low levels of self referencing; and (iv) self referencing is found to partially mediate the relationship between culturally constructed self concept (self construal) and ethnicity on consumer evaluations for interdependent subjects. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.