THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS

Abstract

A standardized approach to international advertising has long been proposed with an assumption that cultural differences across national boundaries were disappearing as a result of an emerging homogenous global market. Despite its apparent appeal to  international marketers, its implementation is difficult considering that the cultural milieu affects marketing communications and those different values may persist in different cultures.  The research problem of this study is whether the marketers’ advertisements are less effective when they are not supported by the cultural values of the society. The study use Hofstede’s collectivism and individualism dimension to examine the advertising effectiveness between Sri Lanka and China. In order to collect data, the survey method and experimental methodology were used. A survey was conducted in two countries to identify the value differences of two societies and experimental methodology was used to test the effectiveness of advertisements. Three hundred university students were used to test the hypothesis of this study. Survey results revealed that two cultures are significantly different on Hofstede’s national  dimension. Chinese society is more collectivistic in comparison to Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan society is moderate on individualism/ collectivism dimension. According to the survey results, collectivistic value reflecting ad is highly effective than the individualistic value reflecting ads in both countries but the effectiveness of collectivistic value reflecting ad is relatively high in China than in Sri Lanka. It was found that the execution of same advertisement is less effective when two cultures do not share the same values.

Keywords:  Advertising Effectiveness, Culture, Individualism

For full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.lk