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Chapter 7

Culture and Communication

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Culture and advertising style

• Appeal• Reflects values and motivations• Product values or added values

• Communication style• Verbal vs visual, direct vs indirect• Basic advertising form

Lecture style, demonstration Drama, indirect approach Pure entertainment

• Execution• Reflection of people’s lives

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Advertising Styles

Austria

Denmark

Germany

Finland

Sweden

USANorway

Singapore

China

France

Argentina

Italy

Arab worldBrazil

Spain

IndiaNetherlands

Ind

irect &

Imp

licit

Dir

ect

& E

xp

licit

AestheticsEntertainment

Emotions

Structure

Symbolism

PDI- PDI+

UAI-

UAI+

IDV

Personal

IDV

IDV/COL

COL

DramaMetaphors

Play with wordsUK

Humor

Japan

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The purpose of marketing communication

• Advertising styles vary with purpose of advertising

• Persuasion or trust• Direct or indirect• Information processing theory of how people

acquire information influences advertising style and effectiveness measurement

• In individualistic culture, advertising must persuade

• In collectivist culture, the purpose of advertising is to build relationships and trust between seller and buyer

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The purpose of marketing communication

• The desire is to establish trusting, in-group-like relationships with suppliers and their products is reflected in the tendency of Japanese advertising to focus on inducing positive feelings rather than on providing information

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The purpose of marketing communication

• In a typical Japanese television commercial, the first identification of a brand, company name, or product occurs later than in a typical U.S. television commercial

• Japanese advertisers tend to take more of a commercial’s time to develop trust, understanding and dependency

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The purpose of marketing communication

• In collectivistic cultures, using a hard sell or directly addressing consumers turns them off instead of persuading them

• Advertising must build trust and advertising must be liked

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The purpose of marketing communication

• People of high-context cultures used symbols, signs and indirect communication will process information in a different way than people of low-context cultures, who are used to explanations, persuasive copy and rhetoric

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Informational Versus EmotionalInformational Versus Emotional

• Rational – emotional dichotomy • Thinking vs feeling• Rational/ informational/ factual/ =• Thinking

Emotional/Transformational=evaluative= Feeling

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Measuring Advertising: Persuasion or Likeability

• Traditional measures of advertising effectiveness are based on persuasiveness of an advertisement:

• Measures include• Attitude toward the advertisement• Brand attitude• Purchase intention• Memory and market performance

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Measuring Advertising: Persuasion or Likeability

• Next to persuasion, likeability has become a measure to predict sales

• Aspects that contribute to the likeability 1.Meaningful: believable, true-to-life 2.Does not rub the wrong way3.Warm (gentle, sensitive)4.Pleases the mind (aesthetic)

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How Advertising works

• The underlying assumption of how advertising works is that advertising takes people from one stage to another

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Advertising effect sequences

“learn-feel-do” “feel-learn-do” “do-learn-feel” “do-feel-learn” “feel-do-learn”

High-involvement

Low involvement

Japanese modeltrust, relationship comes first

Hierarchy of effects models based on AIDA, linear sales process modelAttention, Interest, Desire, Action

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The Logic of advertising in Western societies

How you or your product is different

Why your product is best, using clearly stated information and benefits

Consumers then will want to buy, because they have a clear reason or justification for the purchase

If they are satisfied, consumers will like and trust the company and the product and make repeat purchase

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The Logic of advertising in Japan

Make friends with the target audience

Prove that you understand their feelings

Show that you are nice

Consumers will then want to buy because they trust you and feel familiar with you (the brand and company)

After the purchase, consumers find out if the product is good or what the benefits

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Appreciation of advertising

• Economic effects appreciated• Appreciation related to media usage

Heavy TV viewing = positive attitude to adv on TV• Imported advertising in small markets that doesn’t

fit the culture irritates• Developing markets like advertising better• More advertising liking in collectivistic cultures

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How Advertising works

• Elaboration likelihood model is one of the most advanced U.S. models of how advertising works

• It states that persuasion follows a central route, peripheral route or both

• Within the central route, a person engages in thoughtful consideration (elaboration) of the issue-relevant information (argument) within a message

• So actively thinking about the arguments in the message is the central route

• When a person is not motivated to think about the argument, the peripheral route is followed

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How Advertising works

• In the theory, the peripheral route generally includes visual cues like the package, pictures or the context of message

• In collectivistic cultures, where people process advertising holistically and pictures provide the context, the theory may not apply

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VISUALS in Advertising

• The underlying assumption that consumers from all around the world can READ a picture whereas the copy of the advertisement often needs to be translated

• These highly standardized visual campaign do not always convey a uniform meaning among audiences

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VISUALS in Advertising

• Benetton’s ad showing a black women nursing a white baby won awards for its message of unity and equality in Europe

• The ad stirred up controversy in the United States, because many believed it depicted a black nanny in the subordinate role as slave

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Web Site Design

• Cultural adaptation enhances ease of use and favorable attitudes toward web site

• Web sites reflect values of country of origin

• High-context cultures more animation and moving people

• Differences East-West re interactive communication styles

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Web Site Design• Japanese websites exhibit clear gender roles

and are rich in colors and aesthetics with pictures of butterflies, cherry blossoms or other nature scenes

• U.S. Websites are direct, text-heavy, informative, logical, success-oriented

• High-context cultures use more animation and images of moving people than low-context cultures and images promote values characteristic of collective culture

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Web Site Design• In high-context cultures where people are

more motivated by social interaction, online marketers should generate more consumer interaction such as discussion forums and chat rooms

• In low-context cultures where people search for information, online marketers should emphasize information features such as keyword search and virtual product display

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Web Site Design• Web design includes creating ads that

run on the web as well as the Web site itself

• Banner ads are designed more like outdoor boards than conventional print ads because their small space puts intense requirements on the designer to make the ad communicate quickly and yet attract attention and curiosity to elicit a click-through response

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Web Site Design• The graphics should be simple • Use one or two typefaces and

avoiding ALL CAPs and letter spacing that distorts the words

• Organizing the information is crucial

• In terms of legibility, black type on a high-contrast background usually is the best

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Web Site Design• All the design elements : type and

graphic should be big enough to see on the smallest screen

• Clear navigation: users should be able to move through the site easily

• Eye tracking research found out that if the navigation is cluttered or unclear, viewers will give up and move onto some other sites

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Web Site Design• Users who visit a site regularly should

be able to customize the site to fit their own interests and navigation patterns

• Web video is becoming a new business opportunity for businesses that want to use videos to display their products