Intercultural Communication On Brand Official Websites:A Cross-cultural Analysis Of Chinese And American Advertisements

Brand official websites are both significant channels for consumers to learn about the brands and crucial tools for enterprises to build their brand images and attract consumers.The thesis chooses to study China and the United States,which are top ranking and rapidly developing markets in the digital advertising industry.All the brands the thesis studies come from The World's Most Valuable Brands 2018 list of Forbes.The present study uses content analysis to explore the cultural differences between Chinese and American brands' official website advertisements and the role industry plays in the designing and executives of brands' official websites.The present study uses the nine dimensions of the GLOBE cultural dimension framework to comprehensively explore the cultural values of the advertisements of Chinese and American brand official websites and evaluates the design and executives of their advertisements from two aspects,which are creative strategy and creative execution.The study found that the quantity of information content of brand official website advertisements is related to culture while the types are not related to culture.Within all the information types,price,materials,utility,purchase channels,tastes,and nutrition are related to industry.As for creative strategy,cognitive strategies are found influenced by both culture and industry,attitude strategies are only related to culture,and conation strategies are neither related to culture nor industry.As for advertising narratives,industry is found to be related to information description,real-life scene,and fantasy scene,but culture is only related to cognitive strategies.The types of spokesperson in brands' official website advertisements are related to culture and industry,and the choice of non-real visual elements is only related to culture.In terms of cultural values,organizational collectivism,power distance,performance orientation,humanistic orientation,assertiveness,gender equality and uncertainty avoidance are related to culture,while organizational collectivism,performance orientation,future orientation,uncertainty avoidance are related to industry.As for creative strategy and creative execution,advertisements are influenced by both culture and industry.However,in terms of cultural value,the choice of advertising appeals and the values of advertising are mainly related to culture.There are six out of nine GLOBE cultural dimensions show significant differences in their presentation in Chinese and American brand official website advertisements.Compared with the role culture played in advertising strategy and execution,culture influences advertising content more.However,industry is only related to 4 of the cultural values.GLOBE framework has rarely appeared in cross-cultural advertising researches since released.Using whole nine dimensions in the GLOBE cultural framework,the present study comprehensively explores the cultural value difference between Chinese and American brand official website advertisements,which provides insights for multinational enterprises to design and execute advertisements,verifies the predictive capability of GLOBE framework in the cultural values of advertisements,and lays the foundation for future cross-cultural advertising researches with GLOBE framework.