Advertising reveals a lot about a country - Essay Example

Advertising reveals a lot about a Country Advertising is the presentation or an idea of a product, in order to persuade individuals to buy a particular product. One agrees with the fact that ‘advertising reveals a lot about a country’. In brief, advertising targets the population by appealing to their emotions. In order to do so, they put up with stuff that people can relate to, things that they see happening in front of them, and things in which they themselves are involved. Therefore, as consequence, they inform a whole lot about what things are like in a country.

Language used in an advertisement is one of the first factors that determine what country the advertisement belongs to and hence is an important cultural factor. Usually advertisements in different countries are in their own language; however, it has been an observation that countries have now become multicultural nowadays. People following different cultures and traditions live together. ‘Culture is not something innate or ascribed, it is learned’ (Eller, pp. 26-28). No one is born with an innate sense of culture but it is learned through social institutions, and it rewards socially gratifying behavior.

Social institutions that shape culture comprise of families, religious institutions, media, and schools, and advertising takes all such social factors and subsequently, it becomes more effective. Therefore, advertising shapes culture in a way that it contributes to the consumers’ learning. For instance, when one talks about advertisements such as that of Nike, it is clearly observable that it is not only an advertisement that contains football, basketball, tennis, or athletics; however, it also promotes street dance, skateboard, and anything related to fashion.

Hence, directly reflecting the culture practiced in a country. Advertisements too show the cultural values and ties of a country. For instance, if an advertisement talks about a mother, a father, and a couple of kids laughing at the dinner table, it might communicate a sense of family unity to many residents of the USA. However, the Hispanic viewers might wonder why the grandparents or the grand children are not included because they have a culture of living together with families and the concept of nuclear families is not very common among the people of Hispania.

In addition, advertisements promote cultural values in a way that things considered as taboo and forbidden in one country might not look the same in other countries. Some countries might get offended if things forbidden for them or are a taboo for them might get a humorous treatment. For instance, it is not common to make jokes about death, disease, or drunkenness in an advertisement in the United States, and any ad that would do this would offend a large number of people. All countries do not even promote sexual appeals and hence, it varies from country to country.

Although there is growing public displeasure regarding nudity in Italy, still it is a growing spectrum and is not uncommon in their ads. However, when talking about religious countries like that of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, nothing of the sort is tolerated, and instead they portray their values such as religion and respect among family members. Countries are not expected to exhibit ethnocentrism - belief that one culture is superior to another, in their advertisements. Cultures are expected to be treated equally because it is hard to treat another culture’s symbols and habits with sensitivity.

If it is exhibiting ethnocentrism, so it means that the country has failed to have a contact with the cultural and ethnic groups, and this ignorance can lead to isolation. In the US, it has been an observation that only two percent of the advertising market consists of the African-Americans and the other minorities. It is important to be closer to your audience as it reflects the composition of the audience and therefore the chances of success are expected to improve (Bovee et al., pp. 59-64).

The broad mindedness of a country can be judged upon the fact when one is ready to understand how the culture of the audience is different from one’s own culture. This could come into practice by not superimposing one’s own cultural values into other cultures. Therefore, a Mexican American who is trying to advertise for a Chinese American has to take into account the cultural values of the Chinese American public. Advertising also reveals the fact whether a country is sensitive to culture with or without resorting to stereotyping.

Rationality, research, and common sense solve all the problems that are caused because of sensitivity and stereotyping because it is often difficult to draw a line between the two. For instance, being sensitive to cultural differences would be recognizing that the elderly people command a greater degree of respect in some cultures than others do. Whereas stereotyping would be assuming that Asian Americans are good at mathematics or the fact that African Americans are good at athletics. From the abovementioned facts, it is clearly observable how advertising helps in revealing a country as it shows all the cultural, traditional, and religious aspects and the way it behaves whether it is open-minded or narrow minded.

Works Cited Bovee, Courtland. L, John. V Thill & Dovel, George. P. Advertising Excellence. Mc-Graw Hill, 1995. Eller, Jack David. Cultural Anthropology. Taylor & Francis, 2009.