Comparative Analysis Of Chinese And English Websites Of American Corporations: A Marketing Semiotic Approach

With the development of globalization and modernization, new media plays animportant role in promoting communication among different cultures. As Chinese marketis growing and Chinese consumer’s purchasing power is getting stronger, more and moreforeign companies have built Chinese official websites in order to facilitate itsdevelopment in this huge potential market. The paper sets out to find out whetherAmerican corporations’ Chinese websites show cultural variation from their Americanwebsites in order to better adapt to Chinese market.The comparison of cultural values on web contents is a relatively new topic inintercultural business communication. And also marketing semiotics is up-to-date inexploring cultural issues in marketing setting. The roots of semiotics trail back at least asfar as the pro-Socratic era, and then it is developed into a discipline due to Saussure, Pierceand other great scholars’ effort since1940s. This study employs semiotic theory as itstheoretical framework to analyze the cultural factors hidden50American corporations’Chinese and English websites. The50corporations are chosen from durable goods, luxurygoods and Fast Moving Consumer Goods industries, which can best reflect the divergenceof cultural values as well as consumer behaviors among different countries.After a detailed analysis of the semiotic meaning of the websites selected, the authorcome to the conclusion that American durable goods and FMCG corporations’ Chinesewebsites show cultural adaptation from their corresponding American websites. However,American Luxury goods corporations’ Chinese websites show few differences from theircorresponding American websites in terms of language, color, design, layout, and corevalues. Thus the conclusion is reached that the extent of cultural adaptation diverges whenAmerican corporations try to market their brands and products in Chinese market. As anoptional strategy, the consequences of cultural adaptation need to be further studied.