Advertising

Introduction Advertising is a very important part in our life. It defines the way of life, lifestyle and the world around us. Advertising shapes our thoughts and behavior in society. It determines what is good and what is bad. We buy what companies need. Advertising originated in ancient times. This is confirmed by Egyptian papyrus advertising on the sale of fish in the market. Advertising in those days was written, but in particular verbal. They advertised, like today, almost everything - olive oil, bulls, horses and so on. Services were also advertised. For a long time, forms of advertising were not one. They lived on their own. Some of these forms can be considered a prototype of modern types of advertising. A modern person cannot imagine his life without advertising. Nowadays, advertising is the fastest growing area of human activity. For many centuries, being a constant companion of man, it changes with him. The role of advertising in modern society is not limited to the scope of commercial communications, or even to all market activity. The value of advertising is growing in almost all areas of the economy and public life. Cultural Values and Advertising Culture refers to a set of values, ideas, artifacts, and other meaningful symbols that help individuals communicate, interpret, and evaluate the symbols as active members of society. Culture provides people with a sense of identity and an understanding of acceptable behavior within society. Some of the important attitudes and behaviors influenced by culture are the following [1]: 1. Sense of self and space 2. Communication and language 3. Dress and appearance 4. Food and feeding habits 5. Time and time consciousness 6. Relationships (family, organizations, government, and etc.) 7. Values and norms 8. Beliefs and attitudes 9. Mental process and learning 10. Work habits and practices (P. 63) In this study, cultural content in TV commercials primarily focused on advertising appeals which are embedded with cultural values. Values are shared beliefs or group norms internalized by individuals. Cultural values, then, are the organizing principles, or the orienting ideas for thought and action in every society [2]. A variety of institutions help in the transmission of cultural values within a society. Traditionally, these have been the family, religious institutions, universities, judicial courts, for example. In the post-industrial age, mass media has evolved into another influential institution that facilitates the transmission of cultural values. An individual who is exposed to a specific culture becomes committed to that culture's style of thinking and feeling; value systems, and attitudes [3]. Consequently, promotional communications are developed to coincide with the cultural values and norms of a particular society [4]. As a form of mass media, advertising has emerged as a major institution that is engaging 10 the portrayal and transmission of cultural values. Through the messages and appeals conveyed in it, advertising plays a significant role in changing habits and affecting the basic patterns and structures in society [5]. As Potter says, advertising has "joined the charmed circle of institutions that fix the values and standards of society ... and it becomes necessary to consider with special care the extent and nature of its influence, how it extends, and in what way it makes itself felt" [6]. Television advertising Television is considered one of the most popular channels used for promoting commercial messages for various products and services [7]. Developing commercials for this medium, however is a complex process and usually involves a great deal of research, planning and execution. As the current research will focus on the analysis of television commercial materials, in the following paragraphs more information will be presented on TV advertising and what are the elements included in such promotional message. The first step to understanding this process would be to define a television commercial. According to Resnik and Stern [8], this advertising material can be described as a tool that “transmits some information by transmitting visual and audio stimuli that provide meaningful cues to at least some portion of the audience”. Zandpour et al. [9] add more to the definition by explaining in further detail what type of information is taken into account when producing these commercial materials. They include the current advertising environment in a country (e.g. local government regulations, presence of advertisers on the market, advertising personnel), a creative strategy (considered to be the main guideline for developing a commercial message), advertising style (e.g. tone-of-voice, appeals) and last but not least the product that is being advertised, including all beneficial information for the consumer. In more recent marketing theories, Armstrong and Kotler [10] included the aforementioned elements in their explanation of the marketing mix or the 4 P’s of marketing: Product, Place, Price, Promotion, based on which marketers make decisions on everything that a company wants and can do to persuade customers to buy a product/service [10]. Figure 1. The Four Ps of the Marketing Mix [10] Television commercials are usually presented as a communication tool, part of the Promotion in an integrated marketing strategy. However, the core of any marketing promotional activities is the product that they represent. Armstrong and Kotler [10] define a product as “anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or a need”. They present it not only as a “market offering” based on which marketers build their marketing mix, and subsequently aim for a strong customer relationship, but also as a complex structure where each level adds customer value. As shown in the following diagram, the authors define three levels of a product: product’s “core functions” (includes core problem-solving benefits for the client’s needs; e.g. an iPad is not just a tablet computer but a tool for entertainment and self-expression); the “actual product” (includes product features, design, quality level, packaging and brand; e.g. an iPad is the actual product and its design and features have been carefully considered to create a customer value of staying connected); (3) the “augmented product” (includes additional customer service and benefits; e.g. when purchasing an iPad, Apple may offer a warranty or access to iTunes services for free). Figure 2. Three Levels of Product by Armstrong & Kotler [10] As the current research would involve analysis of the content of television commercials, the theory presented by Armstrong and Kotler [10] would greatly enhance the methodology on classifying the target group of a particular television commercial. For instance, all television commercials that advertise a product with clear core functions targeted to certain target group (e.g. generation) can be separated and analyzed in depth. This can be an arthritis medicine, whose core functions generally correspond to the needs of elderly people. On the contrary, in cases when a coffee drink is being presented and the core functions are not enough to recognize a particular target group, the actual product and its design may be a better cue in that process. However, if a product can be considered to be the core focus of a television commercial, the creative strategy and advertising style can be described as the promotional marketing techniques that are used by marketers. Matthew Healey [11] is one of the authors that discuss the adaptation of brands and products to specific markets, including their advertising activities. In his book “What is Branding”, he highlights the “70/30 rule”, which states that 70% of a brand presentation (e.g. brand’s meaning, values, promises) should remain constant throughout different markets, in order to be recognizable across countries and 30% of it should be adapted to the local culture (e.g. design, packaging, advertising), in order to be more appealing to the local target audience [11]. Following this rule, culture can be recognized as an important factor in television advertising. To further tackle its importance, the next part of this chapter will focus on discussing its impact on the industry. The impact of culture on television advertising Culture is a very complex phenomenon. This complexity is represented by the fact that the term in itself has more than a hundred definitions, however for the purposes for this research paper “culture” will include everything that members of a certain society have (i.e. material objects), their thoughts (i.e. values, ideas) and their deeds (patterns of behavior). Even though that there are several characteristics of a culture that have been recognized as universals (e.g. existence on economic systems, marriage and family systems, educational systems, etc.), this notion is still highly dependable on the environment (e.g. location, local resources) in which a society exists. For example, a person from the Netherlands is assumed to have different cultural characteristic than a person from Japan, because of the different environments in which they were born and raised. Culture is learned” and not inborn which means that once a person is born, he or she learns already existing cultural content (i.e. material objects, thoughts and deeds) from the previous generation, in order to become part of the society and to survive. In terms of advertising, the research on the impact of culture on television commercials has been limited, but there are few scholars that aimed to reject the notion of globalization in advertising through their research and support the argument that local culture has a great impact on television commercials. One of the authors who did a thorough overview on the subject is Dahl [12]. He highlighted some of the few cross-cultural studies based on the analysis of television commercials in his work. For example, one of the addressed studies was focused on the gender roles in television commercials in Russia, Japan, Sweden and the U.S., based on the masculinity and femininity values. Their findings suggested and proved significant differences between the depiction of men and women and the relationship between them in the four countries, taking into account their local masculinity rates. On the other hand, Cho et al. [13] used a different approach when analyzing the impact of cultural values on television commercials in the U.S. and Korea. The scholars develop a dual coding scheme, which includes Hofstede’s dimensions of individualism and collectivism, time orientation and their relation with nature [13]. Incorporating different cross cultural theories in their study, the 10 authors were able to conduct research using the content of their materials. For instance, they focused on elements like a conversation among people as a feature of collectivism. The findings of their research included significantly higher amount of individualistic features (e.g. commercials which present less conversation among people) in the U.S. television commercials than in Korea which also supported their expectations for cultural differences [13]. As a result, it can be concluded that both studies present strong arguments that local culture influences advertising and its characteristics are used in order to adapt the commercial content to become more persuasive to the target audiences.   Interestingly, all of the aforementioned studies analyze the cultural impact on television commercials using the theory developed by Geert Hofstede [14] on cultural dimensions (i.e. individualism and collectivism; masculinity and femininity rate). However, few scholars approached the topic from a different perspective. For instance, the notion of nostalgia as an advertising appeal has been frequently used in the academic research on the topic. Scientists discussed that “nostalgia” has recently became attractive for marketers and especially effective in countries like Russia where the people have experienced drastic political, economic and cultural changes in the past 20 years. In their research, the authors particularly differentiate the classes of nostalgia that can be found in advertising. According to them, marketers are mostly interested in cultural nostalgia, because it involves the consumers’ direct experiences of previous events in their own lives and it has a collective approach, meaning that these experiences are “grounded in cultural events or phenomena that members of a group share” [14]. Thus, this technique has been considered as easier to implement in a nation-wide advertising strategy than any other kind (e.g. personal nostalgia which is related to an individual experience in the past), because of its ability to persuade a larger group of consumers by recalling common memories. Based on these findings in the academic research, it can be concluded that culture is a complex phenomenon and there are numerous factors that need to be taken into account when developing television commercials. More particularly, the aforementioned studies supported the fact that there are differences between cultures (i.e. countries), and also that certain appeals (e.g. nostalgia) can be more favorable only for part of the target market (e.g. people with shared previous experience and people without shared previous experience as part of one target market). However, the question remains whether there are specific cultural differences within a culture. Popular culture is a complex social phenomenon of the 20th century, which is a special type of production and consumption of cultural values that is characteristic of popular culture. Feofanov said: “The connection of advertising with culture is the most direct [15]. This concept is widely used in all its genres. Popular culture is all around us, it is connected with the need for laws in the market. Each object of popular culture should be as an advertising, capable of its sales. This is its main purpose. Another common feature of advertising and popular culture is that both of them have the ability to simplify mass consciousness. They are able to turn any value, any content into banality and in this way ruin social meaning. American scientist Yul Henry, in an article entitled “Advertising as a Philosophical System,” says that advertising “reduces values, makes them banal and ultimately contributes to an indifferent or even cynical attitude towards them”. “In order to impose a particular style or taste, advertising had to ruin original objects. And this, perhaps, is one of the basic laws of popular culture. The object itself is not of great value, it is valuable only insofar as it represents a certain style” [6]. This proximity of advertising and popular culture often leads to the fact that they constantly turn to each other for help. Advertising very often uses the means and technology of popular culture: popular songs, animated films or comics, to praise the products. On the other hand, popular culture uses many proven mechanisms of advertising, its established connections with the mass consumer, its traditional methods of influencing the mass consciousness, such as repeatability, rudeness, appeal to imaginary needs, connection with the laws of the market, supply and demand. Popular culture is spreading not only within one country or another, but also globally, by advertising. It is always a means of propaganda. A. Meyerhof said: (in the book “Suggestion Strategy”) “Americans can win the foreign policy war abroad by using a new way of professional advertising methods” [10]. Transnational advertising agencies are created for this, agencies spend a lot of money and work by huge staff of specialists: psychologists, sociologists, designers, artists. Bourgeois advertising was particularly developed in the USA, a country, where advertising combined not only with popular culture, but also with commerce, politics and the formation of public opinion. Today, talking about American advertising means talking about the formation and formation of national psychology, ways of programming and managing the mass consciousness. This means talking about the media, which cannot exist without it at all, because advertising not only finances radio and television programs, but also brings huge revenues. D. Burstin said: “Advertising is an important part in the stream of American civilization, although you will not read about this in the most famous studies of American history. Advertising was the cement in the foundation of the New World, and it is the most characteristic American product" [14]. It would be a mistake to believe that advertising easily appeared in the American press and the media. We should not forget that the traditions of democracy inherent in the culture of the United States were alien to loudness and advertising spirit. It is no accident that all kinds of restrictions were imposed on printed materials, especially newspapers. There were direct prohibitions on highlighting advertisements in large print to provide equal opportunities for a large industrialist and small trader to sell their goods. Therefore, the creators of advertising had to look for all kinds of workarounds before advertising gained a solid place in newspapers and magazines. In 1858, Robert Bonner (owner of the «Ledger» literary magazine) advertised, that he intended to publish the works of Harriet Beecher Stow and Henry Longfellow. He scored it 93 times in a row. Already at that time Bonner spent 158 ​​thousand dollars on advertising in a year. As it turned out, the results yielded tangible results. For half a year, the enterprising publisher brought the circulation of his magazine to 400 thousand copies, which at that time was a huge figure. Together with practice, the ideology and theory of advertising was formed. She was clouded with cynical bluntness [14]. Conclusion A significant pulse to advertising was given by such inventions as radio, television, printing and the Internet. How we can see, today these four inventions of advertising emit the largest flow of information. Moreover, this stream also has the largest coverage area for people. The level of competition in modern life sets its own conditions. Our life contains a lot of information and companies compete for attention of consumers. Nowadays, advertising become the most powerful tool for managing people, because it can affect on the way of thinking, and behavior respectively. That is why, culture and advertising are inextricably linked because advertising forms a culture and culture influences what advertising will be. References 1. Engel’s approach as a tool for estimating consumer behaviour // Researchgate URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317937694_Engel's_approach_as_a_tool_for_estimating_consumer_behaviour 2. R. Agrawal, A. Arning, T. Bollinger, M. Mehta, J. Shafer, R. Srikant, "The Quest Data Mining System", KDD 1996 3. L. Bryce Boyer, Ruth M. Boyer The Psychoanalytic Study of Society. London: Routledge, 2019 4. Victoria L. Crittenden Proceedings of the 1992 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Berlin: Springer, 2015 5. Daniel Bell The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 1976 6. David M. Potter People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009 7. 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