Beauté and the Eye of the Beholder

an empirical pilot study assessing the effects of French-branding on the appeal of skincare products to American consumers

Albina Shayevich

Linguistics 057

Professor Schiffman

September 26, 2000

Abstract

The pilot research study outlined below was designed to assess the effects of French-branding on the appeal of skincare products to American consumers. The study applies the theory of foreign branding to the skincare product market. As France is the positively stereotyped country in the context of beauty and skincare, it was expected that French-branding a skincare product would make it more appealing to the American consumer, thus replicating the effects of foreign branding already demonstrated by market researchers in other industries. In this study, French-branding was achieved through deceptive linguistic manipulation. An English name, a pseudo-French name and a pseudo-French name with added accent marks were attached to identical product descriptions, and subjects reactions to the product were recorded. A significant trend to favor French-branded product descriptions was found. The product was most rated appealing when its name bore both pseudo-French structure and additional accent marks.

Introduction

It is a well-known fact in marketing research that the success of a product depends largely on how it will be perceived by the consumer (Onkvisit 261). One of the numerous factors that influence this perception is the country-category of the product. Consumers associate certain stereotypes with foreign countries, and depending on the nature of the stereotype, believing that a product is somehow associated with a specific country will either raise or lower the value of the product in the eyes of the consumer (Onkvisit). Some countries are stereotyped negatively in terms of the quality of their products. Products that are assembled in Mexico and Taiwan, for example, are generally viewed as inferior. This is especially applicable in the electronics and automobile industries, as has been demonstrated in a number of in-depth studies (Jaffe & Martinez 1995, Han 1989). Conversely, there is a number of countries that are positively stereotyped with respect to product quality. Usually, this type of halo-effect does not apply to everything a country produces, but rather to specific industries. In general, Germany is positively stereotyped for its automobiles, Japan – for its electronics, Italy – for its shoes and leather accessories, Russia – for its furs and caviar, Switzerland – for its timepieces, and France – for its fashion and beauty products (Peabody, Onkvisit 262-263).

For as long as these associations have persisted, producers have taken advantage of them by marketing products in a way that somehow connects them with the country that is positively stereotyped with regards to the product (Onkvisit). One of the most convenient ways to create the association without actually claiming that a product is manufactured by the halo-country is by means of foreign branding, a strategy that involves pronouncing or spelling a brand name in either a true foreign language or a pseudo-foreign language (Leclerc 1994). Although the process is now recognized as far more complex and multifaceted than originally presumed, research has overall confirmed that this type of linguistic manipulation triggers cultural stereotypes, influencing product perceptions and attitudes. In a study involving products branded in multiple languages, Hastak and Hong found that products were rated the highest in the language of the positively stereotyped country (1991). In one of many related studies, Leclerc, Schmitt and Dube found that French-branded fashion-related products were deemed more appealing by the subjects than English-branded ones (1994). No doubt owing to the grandeur and influence of the French fashion legacy (Steele), the association between France and beauty is perhaps one of the strongest country-of-origins stereotypes, and, consequently, French-branding is perhaps the most common type of foreign branding.

Because it takes advantage of perception rather than reality, the practice of foreign branding, or, for the purpose of this study, French-branding, breeds two interesting phenomena, which have become especially popular with make-up and skincare products. First, foreign branding allows domestic firms to instill their products with French stamp of quality. Just a few examples are the German-based Nivea’s “Visage” line (http://www.nivea.com/cfdocs/nivea/index.cfm), the New York City-based Clinique (http://www.clinique.com/fact.html), and the British-American Estée Lauder (http://www.esteelauder.com/policy/corporate.html). These companies French-brand nearly all of their products, but if one is curious enough to venture to the corporate information corner of the firms’ websites, he will soon learn that neither their origins, nor their headquarters, nor their laboratories, are in any way connected with France.

Second, foreign branding allows producers to simply invent words for their product that sound French but in reality are non-existent. The famous beauty-product manufacturer, Lancome, is truly a French company, yet it manufactures fake French-sounding names for its products and embellishes nearly every product with uncalled-for accent marks (http://www.lancome.com). These practices reinforce the belief that it is not the meaning of the French words that matter to the consumer, but foreignness in itself. The more French, it seems, a skin-care product seems to the consumer, the more it appeals to him.

On a linguistic level, the question that such an assertion poses is that of what exactly are the linguistic cues that trigger the American perception of “Frenchness” in French-branding. From examining the product-naming patterns of companies known for their beauty products, it seems that there are two major means by which this is commonly achieved. One way to French-brand a product name is to “frenchify” its structure. It does not much matter whether the word is French or English, real or fabricated – as long as the linguistic structure looks French to the average American consumer. Certain word endings such as “age,” “ique,” (Nivea Visage and Clinique) “if,” “ais,” “ait,” and so on signal that the word is French to people who do not know the language but have seen French words with similar structure, or heard words with such endings in American mass-media stereotypical portrayal of French speech. The second means to make a product radiate “Frenchness” appears to be the ample use of accent marks (as discussed in the example of Lancôme). While word structure is sometimes shared among languages, accent marks are a clear and very noticeable sign of a word being foreign, since they never appear in words of English origins. An especially potent cue that a word is French is the circumflex, since it appears in French alone.

Thus, in the survey that I have conducted, two main points were addressed. The first point of interest was to test whether portraying a product as French by linguistic means does indeed increase the appeal of the product for American consumers. The second major point of interest was to test whether or not the “French-appeal” functions on a continuous basis, where the more French a product seems, the more appealing it is. To test these two points, three names were invented for a fictional skin-care product: one English and two pseudo-French, the first of these portraying “Frenchness” through structure, and the second portraying “Frenchness” through both structure and the use of accent marks. The three conditions will be hereafter refered to as “English,” “French,” and “very French.”

Hypothesis

The intent of this survey is to find supporting evidence of the assertion that linguistically portraying a skin-care product as foreign makes the product more appealing to the American consumer. The results are expected to show that all other factors remaining constant, an American consumer would find a “French” name of a product more appealing than domestic one, and a “very French” name of a product most attractive of all three. That is, a product name bearing French structure will produce a greater positive impact than an English name, and a product name embellished with accent marks in addition to bearing French structure, will have a greater positive impact than the name bearing the French structure only.

Subjects

The subject pool consisted of American women ages 18 to 55. Some subjects were known to the experimenter, others were approached in the University of Pennsylvania bookstore. All subjects were associated with the University of Pennsylvania. Only women were chosen as subjects in order to eliminate gender differences in the responses that may arise on account of men not being avid consumers of skincare products. A total of 21 subjects participated in the survey, 7 for each of the 3 conditions. Some responses were given orally, some were handwritten by the subjects, and some were sent through email. (For a complete demographic account of the subject pool, see Appendix A.)

Methodology

An “age-prevention” skin care product was invented for the survey, and a description typical of those accompanying such products was composed. Several sources were loosely used as models for this composition, one of them being the October 2000 issue of Elle magazine (p. 315), and the other – several product descriptions on the Lancôme US website. Originally, the product description was more enthusiastic and colorful, but upon closer examination it was made more neutral and subdued so as not evoke an unconditionally high rating of the product regardless of the linguistic manipulation. For the purposes of realistic portrayal the product was described as having been manufactured by the Clarins skin-care company (an unknown manufacturer would have made it undesirable in all three conditions, and “Clarins” sounds neutral, pronounceable in both English and French).

To test the effect of French-branding on the appeal of skincare products, three levels of foreignness were induced. Three different names were given to the product, adhering to the three experimental conditions. In the English condition, the product was presented as “Clarins Rejuvenating Lotion.” In the “French” condition, the product was presented as “Clarins Lait Rejuvenat” – a non-existent, misspelled expression somewhat resembling “rejuvenating milk.” And in the “very French” condition, the product was presented as “Lâit Rejuvenàt,” where two accent marks (the circumflex and the accent egrave) were inappropriately appendaged onto the words. The product name was highlighted in bold print, and appeared thrice in the description. The descriptive text was embellished with an illustration of the nonexistent product compiled in a graphic editor from a combination of several other images, and a second illustration – of a young woman’s healthy face – acquired from the Fall 2000 J. Crew online catalogue. (To see the actual surveys in all 3 conditions, please refer to Appendix B.)

Both the illustrations and the text describing the product were identical in all three conditions – the only variant was the product name. The three versions of the survey were placed on the internet in the form of a small web page for those who would view them on-line and also printed out to be distributed by hand. Subjects were told that they were about to read a description of a product as it appeared in a recent issue of Vogue magazine. They were then asked to rate on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being “not at all” and 10 being “overwhelmingly so,” (1) the extent to which the product appealed to them and (2) how generally interested they were in beauty products. Originally, question 2 asked how likely they were to purchase the product, but that assessment was eliminated as redundant. Assessing general interest in beauty products instead provides a baseline for comparison, which was missing from the first version of the experiment. The subjects’ responses were assessed on two accounts. Their “raw ratings” of how appealing they found the product to be were compared, and, more importantly, their ratios of appeal/general interest were compared.

Results

Among those subjects who were presented with the “domestic” (or “not at all French”) version of the product, the average raw rating of appeal was 2.14 and the average ratio of appeal over the base rate was .354 (n=7). For those who were presented with the “French” (structure but no accents) version of the product, the average raw rating of appeal was 4.29 and the average ratio of appeal over the base rate was .574 (n=7). And for those who were presented with the “very French” (structure and accents) version of the product, the average rating of appeal was 5.29 and the average ratio of appeal over the base rate was .794 (n=7). The table below and the two bar graphs on the following page illustrate the significance of these differences. Because this was a pilot study with only 7 subjects per condition, no formal statistical analysis has been conducted.

APPEAL RATINGS AND RATIOS

	CONDITION 1 Rejuvenating Lotion	CONDITION 2 Lait Rejuvenat	CONDITION 3 Lâit Rejuvenàt
SUBJECT 1	3/8	2/10	5/7
SUBJECT 2	2/7	5/6	6/5.5
SUBJECT 3	2/7	8/8	4/6
SUBJECT 4	0/5	3/6	9/8
SUBJECT 5	3/5	4/8	3/6
SUBJECT 6	1/6	1/9	8/10
SUBJECT 7	4/6	7/8	2/3
AVERAGE	.354 (2.14 raw rating)	.574 (4.29 raw rating)	.794 (5.29 raw rating)

Conclusions and Discussion

The evidence supplied by the data supports the claims of the hypothesis, indeed suggesting a significant trend of a product being perceived more favorably if its name is linguistically manipulated to seem French in structure, and more favorably still if this name is further embellished by accent marks. These findings support the foreign branding theory in the context of French-branding and the skincare industry, suggesting that consumer attraction to skincare products is dependent on the degree of the product’s perceived “Frenchness.”

Despite these favorable findings, it must be noted that the results are not scientifically sound enough to make any definite conclusions. Not only was the size of the subject pool inadequate, but the design of the survey was insufficient to qualify it as a full-fledged experiment. A survey where only one fictional product is rated along two criteria is seriously limited. An ideal version of a survey appropriate for this study would contain several experimental products from all three conditions as well as many fillers. Therefore, the survey presented as supporting evidence of the here-discussed hypothesis can only be referred to as a pilot study, and further experimentation is undoubtedly necessary to draw any sort of solid conclusions with regard to the effects of French-branding on the desirability of skincare products.

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