• International Area Studies Review
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.183-208
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• 2016

The objective of the study was to find out whether the Super Bowl adverts with high Ad Meter scores had more advertising appeals related to U.S. culture in Hofstede's dimensions. The significance of the study lies in the analysis on U.S. consumer preferences on adverts in terms of culture under one of the most representative American sport event: Super Bowl. The study was based on a content analysis of top and bottom 10 Super Bowl adverts during a period of consecutive seven years 2005 through 2011. The top and bottom ten were grouped based on the Ad Meter scores by the USA Today. The number of adverts interpreted by two coders along with the author was 139. The coding results implies that adverts in the top 10 group carried more appeals connected to US culture in Hofstede dimensions, such as youth, untamed, and magic in uncertainty avoidance dimension. Meanwhile, such appeals as ornamental, vain, and status in high power distance dimension were mainly found in the bottom 10 adverts group. Grounded on the findings from the content analysis, links between the score levels and the presence of certain appeals may offer marketers a hint on what appeals they emphasize when producing adverts in a certain cultural bound, let alone Super Bowl adverts targeting TV viewers in the U. S. A.