One of the greatest challenges in education marketing is designing effective marketing messages, especially when targeting consumers with different cultural backgrounds. This research examines the impact of power distance belief (PDB) on the persuasiveness of affective appeal versus cognitive appeal in education marketing messages. The authors theorize that low-PDB consumers tend to prefer education products presented with affective appeal because of their process learning mindset that focuses on self-discovery and self-development. By contrast, high-PDB consumers tend to prefer education products presented with cognitive appeal because of their outcome learning mindset that focuses on acquiring skills and social/economic gains relevant to such skills. These effects were supported by converging results from four experiments, a field study, and a content analysis across 37 countries using a wide range of education products and services. This research contributes to the literature on PDB, education, and cross-cultural consumer behavior and provides guidelines for global education marketers.

教育营销的最大挑战之一是设计有效的营销信息，尤其是针对具有不同文化背景的消费者时。这项研究检验了权力距离信念（PDB）对教育营销信息中情感诉求与认知诉求的说服力的影响。作者认为，低PDB消费者倾向于偏爱具有情感吸引力的教育产品，因为他们的过程学习思维方式注重自我发现和自我发展。相比之下，高PDB消费者倾向于偏爱具有认知吸引力的教育产品，因为他们的结果学习心态侧重于获得技能以及与这些技能相关的社会/经济收益。这些效果得到了四个实验，实地研究，并在37个国家/地区使用各种教育产品和服务进行内容分析。这项研究为有关PDB，教育和跨文化消费者行为的文献做出了贡献，并为全球教育营销人员提供了指南。