Correspondence: Jami A. Fullerton, Oklahoma State University, 700 N. Greenwood Ave., Tulsa, Oklahoma, OK 74106, USA. Tel: +1 918 594 8579; Fax: +1 918 594 8281; e-mail: jami.fullerton@okstate.edu

¹obtained her PhD from University of North Texas and is an associate professor at Oklahoma State University. She is the author of Advertising's War on Terrorism with Alice Kendrick. Her research interests include cross-cultural communication and media globalisation.

²obtained her PhD from University of Tennessee and is Professor of Advertising in the Temerlin Advertising Institute, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, USA. Her research interests include mass media and public diplomacy, advertising employment issues and advertising education.

³obtained her PhD from City University of Hong Kong and teaches advertising and public relations at the Department of Communication Studies of the Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research areas include cross-cultural advertising, and advertising and children.

⁴obtained his EdD from Oklahoma State University and is the Chair of the Mass Communications Department at Oklahoma City University. He teaches advertising and public relations courses on campus as well as in Singapore with the Management Development Institute of Singapore. His research areas include propaganda, cross-cultural advertising and agency management.

⁵obtained her PhD from Queensland University of Technology, Australia and teaches advertising and integrated marketing communication at the School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Her research areas include integrated marketing communication, advertising regulation and ethics and advertising management.

Received 11 July 2007; Revised 11 July 2007.

Abstract

A study of 556 students at colleges and universities in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore explored the relationship between attitude towards the United States and brand attitudes and preferences. Singaporean student attitudes towards both the US Government and US people were higher than were those of the Australian and Hong Kong students. Coke, Nike and McDonald's were among both the most-liked and disliked US brands among the international students, a finding suggesting that brands may possess both a 'lovemark' status, as described in the literature, and its opposite —'loathemark' status — within the same demographic group. US brand preference scores did not offer support for the belief that international consumers 'vote with their pocketbooks' by refusing to purchase US brands if they have a negative attitude towards the United States. Among Hong Kong and Singaporean students, favourable attitudes towards the purchase of US brands was found to be positively related to favourability towards the US Government.