Research On The Archetype Of Chinese Contemporary Advertising

This thesis integrates Chinese contemporary advertising into the broad and complete Chinese cultural system, linking archetype theory, which is based on abundant western myth pedigree, with Chinese culture, interpreting advertisings in a localized mode, not only expanding the application fields of archetype theory, but also widening the perspective of advertising research.Beginning on the interdisciplinary studying of the archetype theory, exploring its application in cultural anthropology, psychology and literature, this thesis points out that, though originated from the West, it does possess multidisciplinary interpretive capacity and thus can be rationally applied to advertising research. Despite that archetype theory cannot cover all advertisements, archetypes do exist in ads. As major texts in consumer society, advertising has become the exemplification of archetype in contemporary society, and archetype is exactly the key to the realization of "meaning transplantation" in ads.Secondly, this thesis investigates archetypal character, theme and pattern in Chinese contemporary ads, pointing out that:common ads characters such as "mother", "pretty face", "hero" and "emperor" actually originated from myths and traditional culture, i.e. not only daily experiences but also double influences on both ads creative and consumers, caused by myths deep behind the sense and collective unconsciousness accumulated in tradition, lead to the use of these archetypal characters; usual ads archetypal theme such as "nostalgia and reunion" and "harmony between man and nature" are common feelings of mankind, resulting advertising’s crossing the barriers of time, space and culture, externalizing the "ethnic and racial memory" behind the human subconscious and generating impressive impact; moreover, archetypal patterns such as complication-development-resolution and seeing/being seen, haunting repeatedly throughout ads, can connect ads works together which appear to have no relationship with each other, reflecting what is under the description layer.Further, this thesis investigates the construction methods of Chinese contemporary advertising archetypes, pointing out three ways of constructing archetype in advertising: inherent, displacement and transformation, i.e. to inherit archetype based on traditional culture, to interpret mythology or traditions in modern ways and to topple over them in order to derive new ones and enrich archetype. Through these means, ads archetypes can be externalized and regularized, and can achieve spiritual communication with consumers by activating their explicit symbols.Finally, this thesis points out the tremendous influences of ads archetype on consumers: providing framework for understanding the consumption world; constructing a person’s identity in the consumption society; propagating and selling mainstream lifestyle and values; and assisting ads in producing false needs and illusions of happiness.