Abstract
The objective of this study was to identify the cultural characteristics affecting advertising contents of the consumer products. Hofstedes(1991) five cultural characteristics such as individualism-collectivism, power distance, masculinity-feminity, avoidance of uncertainty, confucian dynamism were used. Ten kinds of consumer products were included and data were collected from France, Japan, Korea, and U. S. during 1999∼2000. All ads were evaluated and compared their cultural characteristics in terms of country, product involvement and usage, and magazine type. ANOVA, Duncan test, and Pearson correlation-coefficient were applied to analyze data. The results were shown as follows: First, most ads tended to be individual, less power oriented, feministic, and showed high tendency of uncertainty avoidance as well as long term confucianism for all the countries. And some cultural characteristics were different among countries. Japan, France, U. S. and Korea in order showed higher individualism and lower power distance. Also Korea and Japan showed relatively short term confucian culture while U. S. and France did ling term perspectives in the ads. Second, product involvement and usage type had a significant impact on the characteristics of individualism-collectivism and feminity-masculinity. That is, product ads of lower involvement and personal use were likely to show individualistic messages and to have more feministic appeals. Third, magazine type had an impact on some cultural characteristics. Womens magazines would have more individualistic, less power oriented, and feministic appeals of ads. In conclusion, global ads should be localized and differentiated in terms of some cultural characteristics and differ depending on product characteristics.
