“Culture is like dropping Alka-seltzer into a glass: you don’t see it, but somehow it does something.”
Hans Magnus Enzensberg.
Culture affects everything we do. This applies to all areas of human life, from personal relationships to conducting business abroad. By interacting within our native cultures, culture acts as a framework of understanding. However, when interacting with different cultures, this framework no longer applies due to cultural differences.
Intercultural communication aims to help minimize the negative impact of cultural differences by building common frameworks for people from different cultures to interact. In business, intercultural solutions are applied in areas such as human resources, teamwork, foreign trade, negotiations, and website design.
Cross-cultural communication solutions are also essential for effective cross-cultural advertising. Services and products are generally designed and marketed for a national audience. When a product is marketed to an international audience, the same national advertising campaign abroad will, in most cases, be ineffective.
The essence of advertising is to convince people that a product is for them. By purchasing it, they will receive some benefit, be it lifestyle, status, convenience, or financial. However, when an advertising campaign is taken abroad, there are different values and perceptions as to what enhances status or provides convenience. These differences make the original advertising campaign disappear.
Therefore, it is critical to any cross-cultural advertising campaign that an understanding of a particular culture is gained. By way of highlighting areas of cross-cultural differences in advertising, a few examples will be examined.
Language in intercultural advertising
It may seem obvious to say that language is key to effective cross-cultural advertising. However, the failure of companies to check the linguistic implications of company or product names and slogans shows that these issues are not being adequately addressed.
The advertising world is littered with examples of cross-cultural linguistic errors. Most comical was Ford’s introduction of the ‘Pinto’ in Brazil. After seeing sales drop, they soon realized that this was due to the fact that Brazilians did not want to be seen driving a car that meant “small male genitalia”.
Language must also be analyzed for its cultural appropriateness. For example, the slogan used by computer game maker EA Sports, “Challenge Everything” raises complaints of disapproval in religious or hierarchical societies where harmonious relationships are maintained through the values of respect and non-confrontation.
Therefore, it is imperative that language be carefully examined in any cross-cultural advertising campaign.
Communication style in intercultural advertising
Understanding how other cultures communicate allows the ad campaign to speak to the potential customer in a way that they understand and appreciate. For example, communication styles can be explicit or implicit. An explicit communicator (eg USA) assumes that the listener is unaware of the background information or issues related to the topic of discussion and therefore provides it himself. Implicit communicators (eg, Japan) assume that the listener is knowledgeable about the topic and minimize the information conveyed on the premise that the listener will understand by implication. An explicit communicator would find an implicit communication style lazy, while an implicit communicator would find an explicit communication style exaggerated.
Colors, Numbers and Images in Cross-Cultural Advertising
Even the simplest and most taken for granted aspects of advertising need to be inspected under a cross-cultural microscope. Colors, numbers, symbols and images do not translate well between cultures.
In some cultures there are lucky colors, like red in China, and unlucky colors, like black in Japan. Some colors have a certain meaning; green is considered a special color in Islam and some colors have tribal associations in parts of Africa.
Many hotels in the US or UK do not have a 13th room or 13th floor. Similarly, Nippon Airways in Japan does not have seat numbers 4 or 9. If there are numbers with negative connotations abroad, Avoid presenting or packaging products in those numbers when advertising.
The images are also culturally sensitive. While it is common to see images of women in bikinis on billboards on the streets of London, such images would cause outrage in the Middle East.
Cultural Values in Cross-Cultural Advertising
When advertising abroad, the cultural values that underpin society must be carefully analyzed. Is there a religion that is practiced by most people? Is society collectivist or individualist? Is it family oriented? Is it hierarchical? Is there a dominant political or economic ideology? All of these will have an impact on an advertising campaign if left unexamined.
For example, advertising that focuses on individual success, independence, and emphasizes the word “I” would be received negatively in countries where teamwork is seen as a positive quality. Rebellion or disrespect for authority should always be avoided in hierarchical or family-oriented societies.
By way of conclusion, we can see that the principles of advertising also apply to cross-cultural advertising. That is, know your market, what attracts them and what their aspirations are. Cross-cultural advertising is simply about using common sense and analyzing how the different elements of an advertising campaign are affected by culture and modifying them to better speak to the target audience.