This study examines the advertising appeals delivered, and the cultural values reflected in Chinese advertisements in newspaper and on TV. It proved that the most frequently used advertising appeals are 'technological', 'status', 'enjoyment', 'vain', 'natural', and 'healthy' for print ads, 'effective', 'youth', 'enjoyment', 'technological', 'vain', 'healthy', 'traditional', 'family', and 'status' for TV ads. Most of them are product category related, but others, such as 'enjoyment', 'healthy', 'status', are universal for any products. The origin of brands makes a difference only on some appeals. Local Chinese brands tend to use more 'traditional', 'community', 'cheap' and 'morality' which are inherent in traditional Chinese culture. However, global and local brands are becoming similar on the choice of most advertising appeals. Among cultural values, group/consensus appeals are significantly more than individual/independence appeals; soft-sell appeals are significantly more than hard-sell appeals; modernity/youth appeals are significantly more than traditional/veneration of elderly appeals; product merit are significantly more than status appeals; symbolic values are significantly more than utilitarian values. Cultural values differ by product category but not by country of origin. Between global brands and local Chinese brands, there is no significant difference on cultural values except that local brands' TV ads keep more group and traditional values. The elements of 'Chinese culture' are broadly used by both local and global brands. Symbolic visuals are preferred to only literal visuals. Website addresses are shown in most print ads. Corporate image, new product ideas and life style are also given attention to. TV ads convey more group/consensus, soft-sell, traditional/veneration of the elderly, oneness of nature and symbolic values, but less hard-sell and status values than print ads. The implications of this research are: 1. Advertisers in China need to consider all the related variables-product category, origin of brands, media type, target market and culture-when choosing advertising appeals and cultural values. 2. Cultural adaptation is necessary and helpful. The issue is not what advertising appeals to pick, but how much Chinese culture to be added in delivering them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07292008-155611 |
| Date | 26 September 2008 |
| Creators | Tian, Kun |
| Contributors | Thomas Rawski, R. Venkatesh, Jennifer Shang |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07292008-155611/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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