Journal of Advertising
| December 22, 1999 | Cho, Bongjin; Kwon, Up; Gentry, James W.; Jun, Sunkyu; Kropp, Fredric
This study develops a cross-cultural content analysis framework to examine underlying cultural dimensions: individualism/collectivism, time orientation, relationship with nature, and contextuality. Most cross-cultural content analyses have inferred that differences in execution have been due to assumed cultural differences in the societies examined (often based on the work of Hofstede [1980D]); the development of the structure proposed here will allow the direct investigation of those cultural issues. Television commercials from the U.S. and Korea were selected as being representative of North American and East Asian commercials. Both countries are present-time oriented, and while individualism and collectivism are prevalent in both cultures, individualism is more dominant in the U.S. Korean commercials stress oneness-with-nature slightly more than U.S. commercials, and U.S. commercials use more direct approaches. Directions for refinement and future research are identified.
Although many marketers would prefer to have a consistent global mix of products, promotion campaigns, pricing structures, and distribution channels, marketing mix variables often are modified when goods and services are readied to cross national boundaries. Adjustments are common due to policy regulations, cost concerns, and/or cultural preferences. Mueller (1994) found few attempts being made to standardize advertising campaigns. These modifications have the potential to be more effective when they are culturally based. For example, Moon and Franke (1987) found that Korean magazine ads are more informative and less image-oriented than U.S. ads, while an experiment conducted by Taylor, Miracle, and Wilson (1997) found that Koreans prefer high context and less information-oriented ads more than Americans do. Similarly, Speece and So (1998) noted that creative appeals in Hong Kong had only recently shifted from hard sell to a softer approach to be more in line with the local culture.
That advertising messages should be congruent with the values of local culture has been long advocated (Belk, Bryce and Pollay 1985; Boddewyn, Soehl and Picard 1986; Buzzell 1968; Harris 1984; Hornik 1980; Zhang and Gelb 1996). Pollay and Gallagher (1990) summarized this position by noting that cultural values are the core of advertising messages and typical advertisements endorse, glamorize, and reinforce cultural values. In addition, empirical studies have found that advertisements reflecting (some) local cultural values are more persuasive than those that ignore them (Gregory and Munch 1997; Han and Shavitt 1994; Hong, Muderrisoghi and Zinkhan 1987; Madden, Cabellero and Matsukubu 1986; Marquez 1975; Taylor et al. 1997).
The most common process used to investigate cross-cultural differences in advertising has been content analysis. The vast majority of the studies (with the exception of McCarty and Hattwick 1992) have assumed implicitly that cultures differ on certain dimensions and have then investigated the match between those "differences" and the content of advertising messages. For example, dissimilarities stemming from cultural differences have been found to be prevalent both in advertising themes (Han and Shavitt 1994; McCarty and Hattwick 1992; Mueller 1987; Tansey, Hyman and Zinkhan 1990) and execution (Alden, Hoyer and Lee 1993; Biswas, Olsen and Carlet 1992; Cutler and Javalgi 1992; Lin 1993; Miracle, Chang and Taylor 1992; Nevett 1992; Zandpour, Chang and Catalano 1992).
As noted above, the differences in cultures in nearly all cases were not measured explicitly. Instead, the differences in cultures were based on assumptions embodied in past cross-cultural literature, e. g., one country is assumed to be more individualistic than another, often based on data obtained nearly 25 years ago (Hofstede 1980). Over time, the Hofstede dimensions have changed in content (Chinese CultureConnection 1987; Hofstede 1994), and Fernandez et al. (1997) found significant shifts in value classifications in some countries since Hofstede conducted his original study. Studies that have measured cultural dimensions (instead of assuming that differences exist) have found results counter to those of Hofstede (1980). For example, Triandis et al. (1988) found Japanese college students to be more individualistic than students in the U.S., while Wilcox et al. (1996) found similar results between Korean and U.S. students. Kagitcibasi (1994) concluded that finding relevant intermediate variables is neces sary to the understanding of what in "culture" accounts for differences observed across cultures.
Another major criticism of content analyses is that they frequently concentrate on more mechanical details such as types of products shown, length, and sex of spokesperson. This necessitates making indirect arguments as to the underlying cultural explanations for the differences. Further, Taylor et al. (1997) and Taylor and Stern (1997) make the point that content analyses reflect what is available, not what consumers would prefer.
The intent of this paper is to develop a comprehensive, mutually exclusive, and parsimonious set of cultural dimensions based on an extensive review of the cross-cultural literature. After selecting these dimensions and developing operational definitions, the framework is used to conduct a preliminary investigation of television advertising in East Asian (Korea) and North American (U.S.) contexts. Although the use of this structure does not measure what consumers would prefer, it is used to assess whether the advertisers' intentions in modifying advertising content across cultures were put into practice appropriately.
The Need to Focus on Both Theme And Execution
Cross-cultural differences have been found both in terms of advertising themes and executions. Duncan and Ramaprasad (1995) suggest that strategy, execution, and language are the three basic components of a multinational advertising campaign. Killough (1978) also makes a distinction between buying proposals ("what one says") and creative presentations ("how one says it") with respect to international advertising, and suggests that buying proposals are much more amenable to international transfer than creative presentations. Both themes and executions are outputs of the creative process: however, there are key differences between them. Theme is the content of the message, that is, the "what is communicated." Execution is the creative presentation of the message, the "how the message is communicated." The present study examines the extent to which cultural dimensions are reflected in themes and executions separately. This separation is especially important in television commercials, the advertising context stu died here, as high production costs may reduce the flexibility to modify executions across cultures.
In the few cases where both theme and execution were evaluated, varying practices have been noted. For example, in a study of advertising in Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China, Singapore, and Taiwan, Tai (1997) found that most multinational corporations use the same positioning and main themes for all four markets, but adopt different executions in local markets. This finding is consistent with the practice of "pattern advertising" advocated by many international marketing textbooks.
Cultural Dimensions
A wide variety of dimensions has been proposed and used in the content analysis of advertising across cultures. in developing a systematic framework, the cultural dimensions selected need to be exhaustive and exclusive, and need to reflect those cultural values most relevant to an advertising context. Pollay (1983) developed a list of 42 common cultural appeals, which Cheng and Schweitzer (1996) later modified to encompass 32 cultural values. Similarly, Albers-Miller and Gelb (1997) modified Pollay's list to encompass 30 different cultural values. While Cheng and Schweitzer (1996) did find significant (p[less than].05) differences for the frequency of observation of 11 of the 32 values, the framework loses some appeal due to its lack of parsimony. Thus, issues such as exclusivity, exhaustivity, and parsimony frequently have not been handled well, especially given the number of studies on cross-cultural advertising.
Most studies have used a more limited set of cultural dimensions, with a large variety in dimensions among studies. Examples of dimensions include individualism/collectivism (Han and Shavitt 1994; Huang 1995; McCarty and Hattwick 1992; Mueller 1987; Wilcox et al. 1996); hard sell/soft sell, also operationalized as direct/indirect or informational/emotional appeals (Biswas et al. 1992; Cutler and Javalgi 1992; Domzal and Kernan 1993; Johansson 1994; Lin 1993; Mueller 1987, 1992); utilitarian/hedonic appeals (Tse, Belk and Zhou 1989); use of informational cues (Miracle et al. 1992; Ramaprasad and Hasegawa 1992); use of visual components (Cutler and Javalgi 1992); use of metaphors (Graham, Kamins and Oetomo 1993; Kaplan 1992); drama vs. lecturer-typed ads (Zandpour et al. 1992); relationship with nature (McCarty and Hattwick 1992; Mueller 1987); materialism (Belk and Bryce 1986); activity orientation (McCarty and Hattwick 1992); and one's urban/rural orientation (Tansey, Hyman and Zinkhan 1990).
While many of these studies do, indeed, identify differences between cultures, a lack of fit may result when cultural dimensions are borrowed from a cross-cultural theory developed with respect to a social domain far different from the advertising context. For instance, Hofstede's (1980) oft-cited four cultural dimensions--power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, and masculinity/femininity--were initially developed as work-related values in the context of a single multinational organization. Huang (1995, p. 159) noted, "one must keep in mind that …
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