Lost in translation? How multilingual packaging influences product evaluations by impeding consumers’ processing fluency

Abstract

Owing to the global nature of today's marketplace, companies commonly use standardized packaging to distribute their products in multiple countries. Hence, consumers are regularly confronted with packaging that presents product information in their native language and in multiple foreign languages. However, how this impacts consumers has rarely been studied. In three experimental studies (N = 3,010), we identify processing fluency as an important driver of the consumer-sided consequences of multilingual packaging. Our research finds that the presence of foreign languages with which consumers are only weakly familiar impedes their mental processing of the product, resulting in less favorable product evaluations. Furthermore, a high number of translations printed on packaging also decreases processing fluency. Although multilingual packaging might be seen as a purely distributional cost-cutting method, the results of this research suggest that companies need to carefully consider how many and which languages are placed on packaging to realize their products’ full sales potential. Theoretical contributions, implications for packaging design, and directions for further research are discussed.