Advertising

Advertising and Culture

Advertising is a marketing tactic used to persuade customers to purchase a certain product or service (Boeing 342). Community, on the other hand, is the collection of shared ideals, traditions, rituals, and experience that distinguishes one entity from another. Companies used advertisement campaigns in the past to manipulate society or a certain culture. Customers will find themselves purchasing goods that advertisers claim are essential for them. This is because rising businesses want to seize every opportunity that comes their way. Furthermore, advertising has had a major impact on how people build their true selves. Such is because most of them want to be just like what or whom they see in advertisements. The situation is changing rapidly with new trends in the corporate world forcing managers to invent new marketing strategies that are culture-sensitive. The paper will focus on the influence of culture on advertising today.

How Culture Influences Advertising Today

Advertising has always affected the way we think about ourselves especially the youth. Some strategies have created anxiety, thus perceiving themselves as not beautiful enough and should use certain products to transform themselves. Also, advertising has always influenced the values or perception of people to the extent that the existing culture today lacks genuineness and is just an advertisement-induced version. Today, however, many businesses are forced to consider cultural influences of a particular target region before introducing their products. It is because of product diversification that the demand for some products increased to the global level (Sheehan 28). Products moving to international markets require proper promotions if they are to sell to significant volumes. The returns largely depend on the influence of the cultural aspects found in that area towards the promotional methods employed. Therefore, culture affects the type of marketing strategy chosen since people have realized that some ads are misleading. Consumption decisions of end users depend on the cultural influences.

Symbols

In the modern society, cultural influences through symbols are in the form of language, either unspoken or spoken, music, and folklore (Sheehan 28). A symbol reflects a particular cultural identity and pride. A marketer may need to consider the advertising strategy to use that conforms to the language symbols of a particular country.

Thought Processes

Such may differ among cultures and may influence the perception of people about a marketing strategy (Boeing 342). One culture may identify the advertisement images and even recognize specific content even in the background, while those of another ethnicity may only know what the central figure is leaving out the background details is. Hence, a marketer should think of the right manner that considers social thought processes, to convey their messages to customers.

Communication Styles

Cultures differ in regards to communication styles seen in advertisements. Still, in the case of individualistic communities such as those in the United States, metaphors are commonly used during interactions (Okazaki 216). The collectivist groups employ indirect communication methods.

Values

Values play a role in every society and determine the acceptable and non-acceptable conducts. In the United States, for instance, people base their purchasing decisions mainly on personal tastes and preferences (Okazaki 216). In Japan, however, the consumption decisions depend on the well-being of a group or family. So, if marketers are to succeed in both countries, they have to create advertisements that focus on individuals and others that target shared values.

Rituals

Rituals reflect a series of behaviors commonly seen in an individual. They determine how certain life events like funerals or marriages take place in diverse nations and also affect decisions about buying certain commodities. For instance, watching television at a given moment repeatedly is a ritual or having coffee at a common restaurant every Wednesday. Understanding cultures is increasingly becoming crucial for global advertisements, especially in an area where people face uncertainty avoidance (Okazaki 216). The term refers to the extent to which a group is not willing to accept or deal with change. Those with high uncertainty avoidance levels are likely to be anxious and fear change, while those with low uncertainty avoidance levels recognize innovations. Therefore, an advertisement targeting a high uncertainty avoidance culture offers detailed information regarding the use of a product or service. However, those targeting low uncertainty avoidance cultures just present the outcome regarding benefits of using a commodity or service.

Effective advertisements in one country cannot be merely utilized in another place without thinking about the peculiarities of that region. Other countries have advertising laws that need following. For instance, Germany prohibits the use of relative terms, and a rival is free to sue (Boeing 342). Language limitations are paramount before creating an advertisement since they hinder effective communication. The issue here is, different languages could mean different things in various countries, even pronunciation results in ad challenges. Cultural factors affect the manner in which people distinguish phenomena; hence messages vary. The main cultural elements that determine a buyer's behavior include lifestyle, behavior, needs, attitudes, habits, and perceptions. It is vital for any marketer to learn about these factors, especially in cross-cultural areas if they aim at selling a product successfully.

Work Cited

Boeing, Matthias. Analysis of Cultural Differences and Their Effects on Marketing Products in the United States of America and Germany: A Cultural Approach to Marketing Using Edward T. Hall and Geert Hofstede. Hamburg: Anchor Academic Pub, 2013. Print.
Okazaki, Shintaro. Handbook of Research on International Advertising. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub, 2012. Print.
Sheehan, Kim. Controversies in Contemporary Advertising. , 2013. Print.