How People Read An Ad Story

Prior literature on narrative advertising has been neglecting the cultural component of consumer responses.This study uses a reader response-approach and a trans-positional interpretation method to understand differences in perception of Chinese and German viewers regarding narrative advertising from two countries.Two focus groups from China and Germany respectively were interviewed after watching seven narrative ads.Responses were analyzed and discussed with two advertising practitioners in both China and Germany.This study found that Chinese judge the credibility of storylines and characters based on how these aspects related to their personal life experiences and relationships,whereas German viewers tend to judge both based on their real-world plausibility and application to society.Moreover,Chinese viewers understood the character as being impacted by the story,while German viewers read the character as impacting the story.Lastly,Chinese viewers preferred a turbulent storyline buildup and were more responsive to themes of persistence.German viewers preferred smooth buildups and were more responsive to unique themes as well as music.In accordance with the findings,suggestions for future research and for advertising practitioners planning narrative ad campaigns targeting audiences in Germany,China,as well as globally are discussed.