Cultural Values Reflected In Execution Of The Advertising Theme: A Comparative Study Of Television Commercials Of America And Mainland China

Advertising is firstly an economic activity that reflects social productivity and the level of economic development. It is the utilitarian nature of advertising. But meanwhile advertisement is a cultural product which is the reflection of cultural values. In fact, advertising's utilitarian nature has been the focus of researching, but the important value of advertising culture has been overlooked.Based on cultural dimensions by Hall, Kluckhohn and Strodbeck, and Hofstede, and the theoretical framework by Cho et al., the present study seeks to identify the cultural values reflected in TV commercials between U.S. and mainland China in underlying cultural dimensions: individualism/ collectivism, time orientation, relationship with nature, and contextuality. There are 4 hypotheses being put forward in the dissertation. Content analysis is applied in the study.Results are concluded after analyzing TV commercial samples colleted from U.S. and mainland China (through local TV channels and internet TV software). The executions of television advertising are found to be more individualistic in U.S. ads as hypothesized, but Chinese ads are not found to be more collectivistic. Contrary to our hypothesis, U.S. commercials are not more future-oriented, nor are Chinese commercials more past-oriented. Instead, commercials in both cultures demonstrate strong present-time orientations. On the dimension of one's relationship with nature, also contrary to our hypothesis, U.S. commercials do not stress the manipulation of nature more than Chinese commercials. In terms of contextuality, Chinese commercials are not more high-context than the U.S. commercials.