Cross-cultural impact on financial companies’ online brand personality

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate Chinese and American financial companies’ distinct brand personality indicators shown through culturally based linguistic features online. The potential correlation between culturally oriented brand personalities and companies’ financial performance is also examined. Design/methodology/approach This study employs computerized content analyses to examine the cross-cultural differences among 28 American and Chinese financial companies’ online communication based on Aaker’s brand personality framework. Findings The findings reveal that despite some similarities, there are significant differences between the frequencies and patterns of brand personality indicators on American and Chinese websites, which demonstrate the connection between the companies’ linguistic preferences with their different cultural backgrounds. It also proves that there could be significant relationship between financial companies’ corporate brand (CB) personality expressions and their financial performance, and US financial companies’ revenues are more closely correlated with brand personality dimensions than Chinese companies’. Practical implications The necessity for cross-cultural adaptation of CB personality is verified in this study. Chinese international companies may have a big room to improve their online corporate communication. Similarly, foreign companies who intend to enter into Chinese market may think about laying emphasis on their personality indicators of competence in their online corporate communication. Originality/value This research is among the first to utilize a corpus-based analytical tool to conduct content analyses of financial companies’ online brand personalities, in addition to empirically validate the correlations between companies’ brand personality indicators and financial performance. The study enriches the literature on online marketing communication, draws attention to the connection between cultural differences and linguistic preferences in CB personality construction and emphasizes the importance of making appropriate cross-cultural adaptation in online corporate communication.