Culture Reflected In Food Advertising

The influence of advertising is reaching the nooks and crannies of our daily lives.Practically, no one can escape its influence. In a subtle and tricky way, advertising notonly affects the purchasing behaviors of the public, but also has impact on people‘svalues. As a product of commercial activities, advertising is also the reflection ofpeople‘s values. Many scholars have done research on advertising. By resorting toHofstede‘s cultural dimensions theory, some of them content-analyzed theadvertisements of two or more countries, thus shedding some light on the relationshipbetween advertising and culture.In order to get a clear picture of the usage of appeals in American and Chinese fastfood commercials as well as whether the usage of dominant appeals is consistent withHofstede‘s cultural dimensions theory, this thesis content-analyzed40American KFCand McDonald‘s commercials and40Chinese ones. Cheng and Schweitzer‘sclassification and definition of advertising appeals are adopted.Based on relevant literature review, this thesis puts forward the following researchquestions:RQ1: What are the dominant advertising appeals manifested in Chinese and U.S.fast-food television commercials?RQ2: What are the similarities and differences in the usage of appeals betweenChinese fast-food commercials and American ones?RQ3: Do the similarities and differences in the usage of dominant appeals correspondwith the countries‘scores on Hofstede‘s cultural dimensions?After the initial analysis of sample commercials,11dominant appeals areidentified(for Chinese commercials,7；for American commercials,7). Appeals, suchas modernity and work, which do not help sell the products, do not appear in thesample commercials. The three most frequently used advertising appeals for Chinese sample are: economy, enjoyment and convenience; the three most frequently usedadvertising appeals for American sample are: enjoyment, popularity and uniqueness.Enjoyment appeal is stressed in both countries.In the second phase of analysis, the11dominant advertising appeals are examined.They are related with Hofstede‘s six cultural dimensions, and the direction of thisrelationship (negatively or positively) is also decided by the coders. As for the results,7of the dominant appeals largely accord with the hypothesized relationships. Only4appeals (popularity, collectivism, leisure and economy) are contrary to thehypothesized relationships.In conclusion, Hofstede‘s cultural dimensions theory can be used to shed some lighton the adoption of advertising appeals in fast food commercials. However, attentionshould be paid to some irregularities caused by the products‘own characteristics andother factors.