Foreign Advertising in China
---The role of culture values
in global advertising
The aim of business is same everywhere, the way to do business varies considerably across the countries. Obviously if a trans-national company wants to be successful, it would localize its marketing idea to match local context.
As a part of global business, global advertising needs to take the local culture into account when designing a cross-culture advertising campaign especially in devoted religious countries such as India and the Middle East where culture values can be extremely different from most others.
Culture orientations influence consumers’ propensity to form brand relationships, perceptions of brand differentiation, buying behaviour, communication and intellectual style differentiation, which might generate different advertising style.
There are a few versions of culture norms, the most popular culture frame is Hofstede’s five dimensions: individualistic/collective; power shared/power monopolised; uncertainties feared/uncertainties accepted; masculine/feminine; time linear/time circular
The five dimensions have been used in global advertising campaigns, but the usefulness has not been proofed completely as effective global advertising involves other factors. Every nation includes a complex culture system, there is not a country that just has one side purely in that pattern, but a combination instead. Using one word to describe a nation’s features is not enough, as people are all individually different and therefore there are all kinds of groups of people in that society. Also the five-dimension norm is too vague. To cater to different target groups, detailed culture differences need to be examined before launching cross-culture campaigns. Local culture analysis and research is important and helpful.
For example according to individualistic/collective pattern, China is a collective country, advertising style should include characteristics of collective...