"Would you still buy it if it is controversial?"

Controversial advertisements have become more prevalent in recent years within marketing fields. Nonetheless, previous examples showed that these advertisements' effects on consumers are either positive or negative, and companies still need to understand how to run controversial advertisements properly, which groups to target, and how. With the lack of literature on this topic, this research aimed to bring insights that could benefit both academic and societal spheres connected to controversial advertising fields. To answer the research question "What is the influence of controversial advertisements on Serbian and Dutch consumers' purchase intents of products controversially advertised?" racist, sexist, and stereotyping controversy types were firstly analyzed. Therefore, the first research goal was to investigate if one type (racism) influences the purchase intent of products controversially advertised more than the other two. Additionally, Hofstede's model was applied to test differences between countries and their cultural dimensions; thus, the second research goal was to investigate if the type of a country influences the purchase intent of these products. Lastly, Serbia and The Netherlands were compared to see if chosen controversy types significantly influence one consumer purchase intent more than the other. These countries were chosen due to personal reasons (the author comes from Serbia but lives in The Netherlands), but more importantly, for being ranked differently on two cultural dimensions used in this research. The results showed that participants from Serbia had higher purchase intent of products controversially advertised than participants from The Netherlands, hence concluding the second research goal. On the other hand, the chosen controversy type (racism) did not influence the purchase intent significantly more than the other two types. Similarly, these three types together did not influence the purchase intent of one country significantly more than the other. Considering the results received, the conclusion was that controversial advertisements did not influence these two countries.