A Study Of Cultural Values Differences In Chinese And Western Cosmetic Advertisements

With the development of world economy, people’s material wealth is in great abundance and people have more choices when purchasing things. Thus advertisement has become more and more important in human life. Advertising is not only a commercial activity which reflects social productivity and economic development, but also a reflection of cultural values. Among the advertisements, cosmetic advertisement ranks the largest. However, the studies of cosmetic advertisements just focus on its language, and the study of cultural values reflected in cosmetic advertisements is rare.With the theories of Hofstede-Bond’s value dimensions, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s value orientations and Edward Hall’s high-and low-context orientations, this thesis tries to analyze the different cultural values reflected in Chinese and Western cosmetic advertisements in the following five cultural dimensions: individualism/collectivism, power distance, time orientation, relationship with nature and high-context/low-context. The Chinese and Western cosmetic advertisements are mainly collected from TV, fashion magazines, internet. Cross-cultural approach is applied in this thesis. After analyzing the Chinese and Western cosmetic advertisements from the point of cultural value, the author finds that, generally speaking, Chinese cultural values reflected in cosmetic advertisements basically follows collectivism, belief in authority, past-time orientation, harmony with nature and high-context; Western cultural values reflected in cosmetic advertisements basically follows individualism, belief in fact, future-time orientation, mastery over nature and low-context. At the same time, with the development of society and economy, the cultural values of both sides have changed to some extent, which are also reflected in cosmetic advertisements. For example, more and more Chinese young people want to show their unique personality. In spite of the concept of harmony with nature, Chinese people also begin to focus on the power of human, science and new technology. Because the environment is becoming worse and worse, more and more Westerners want to live harmoniously with nature.It is believed that the analysis and comparison of the Chinese and Western culture in cosmetic advertisements will enhance the mutual understanding between China and the West and contribute a lot to the cross-cultural studies. At the same time, it also gives some useful suggestions to those advertisers who may deal with international business.