Advertising for the Chinese Market compared to the US Consumers - Essay Example

?Advertising for the Chinese Market compared to the US Consumers Introduction Advertising is a crucial element in marketing; its aim is to capture the attention, minds, and hearts of the consuming public. Since the purpose of advertising is to appeal to the largest audience possible within the target market, it tends to adopt certain characteristics dictated by the culture of the market and social attitudes. China is a vast emerging market which has attracted a great many companies from the developed countries because of its large consumer pool consisting of more than one billion people. While Western markets are in economic recession, China’s demand for new products and services is growing exponentially, and to maintain competitiveness, companies cannot ignore the Chinese market (Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, 2012). Therefore companies must communicate the merits of their products to the Chinese people, in a way that yields sales and revenues. Brief Description of Ad The print ad chosen for this exercise is shown in the Appendix of this paper. The advertisement promotes a pharmaceutical product called Sanju. At first glance, the advertisements look perfectly ordinary and normal. The three pictures shown all exhibit a serene beauty and sophistication, with perfectly even lines, subtle tones, and perfect symmetry, until one gets the uneasy feeling about seeing the chandelier rising out of what appears to be the floor, and the couch upside down in the ceiling. Only when one sees the window arches at the bottom and suspects that these may be doors and not windows does one realize that the room is upside down, while the person is right side up. The other two ads reflect the same queer arrangement. Comparison of ad with advertisement environment in another country Compared to the U.S. buying public, consumers in China are less individualistic and more collectivistic (Jing, 2010), although there is evidence that ‘vertical individualism that emphasizes “benefits to an individual consumer” is dominant in both China and U.S. advertising (Tsai & Wei-Na, 2006, p. 93). Chinese consumers also respond more favourably to advertising, and in particular to print media (La Ferle, Edwards & Wei-Na, 2008; Dong-Xin, et al., 2011). For this reason, a print ad was chosen for analysis, aimed at conveying a benefit to the individual. In China, Confucian ethics may be found intertwined with advertising messages. Chinese culture favours the Yin-Yang concept, that is, the existence of opposites by virtue of each other, and between which a balance must be attained. In the U.S., the emphasis is more on competition, and brand positioning focuses on a single core appeal, which is either one that is rational or one that is emotional (Zhou & Dou, 2007), but seldom the two together. Confucian ethics embraces the holistic approach, espousing both qing (emotion) as well as li (reason), a feature which is almost always jointly observed in Chinese advertising (Yinjiao, 2006). Advertising is often ‘complicated, cultures-specific’ and particular in politeness behaviour that impacts directly on ethical issues when the advertisers are foreigners (Zhu, 2009, p. 517). Easily, the advertisement depicted here is both emotional and informative – emotion by way of humour, and information in the slogan and the picture of the bottle of medicine at the lower right-hand corner. Confucian teaching has also always been linked to serenity and balance in life, the same attributes that are reflected in these advertisements. These are at once communicated to the viewer by the visual advertisements. However, there is a hidden piece of humour in these ads that are lost to foreigners. The product is a Sanjiu, a muscle and joints pain relief medication. The slogan, written in Chinese characters, directly translates to ‘Reverse the pain’ which would have been better translated into the English: ‘eliminate’ or ‘diminish the pain’. The word ‘reversal’ would have been proper in the Chinese language, for which the pictures are metaphors. For English speakers, the pictures are not so much ‘reversed’ as they are ‘inverted.’ Maybe a visual which would be more consistent to the English meaning of reversal would be somebody running backwards, as in reversal through time. In English, the word ‘reversal’ conveys a process, so someone doing something backward would be reversal. As it is, the inversion shown in the pictures conveys more a world out of order, an illogical or topsy-turvy affair where nothing is as it should be. From the point of view of Chinese viewers, however, the message, and the humour, is clear, that the product ‘reverses’ the pain so that there is no more pain, so the world is ‘reversed’ and the person is able to resume his/her physical activity. Even the name of the product, Sanjiu, has a significance in Chinese that escapes foreigners. Sanjiu translates literally to 3-9, but in fact refers to ‘999’. The number 9 in China is associated with ‘long’ so three 9s in a row is metaphorically ‘long life’. From this, the Sanjiu brand attached to medicines mean that Sanjiu medications help prolong live. Conclusion The chosen advertisement is an example of an message the text and visuals of which must be properly viewed from a cultural context. The medicine’s brand name, the slogan of the campaign, and the pictures are relevant when framed within the Chinese culture. As it is, the marketing effort built on this advertising campaign would probably be very effective within China or to Chinese viewers wherever they may be situated. It may also be appealing to other Asians because of the similarity of cultures among them. On the other hand, Westerners and English speaking peoples would be at a loss to understand how the pictures relate to the product which is displayed at the foreground. The visuals appear strange but relating it to the reversal of pain is not obvious to non-Chinese or non-Asians. Even if the English speakers were assisted by a dictionary, the direct translations do not effectively convey the meaning of the message. The association of the direct translation of 3-9 with longevity, for instance, and the meaning of ‘reversal of pain’ as ‘reduction or removal of pain’ has to be explained, as well as the visual inversion as equivalent to reversal. Bibliography Chu, S., & Sung, Y. 2009 . ‘Dimensions Of Chinese Brand Personality: Implications For International Advertising Strategies In China.’ American Academy Of Advertising Conference Proceedings, 50. Dong-Xin, L., Dong Il, L., Yong-Ki, L., & Mitch, G. 2011. ‘Can We Establish Consumer Cultural Positioning Through Print Advertising in the Developing Markets? A Content Analysis of Advertising in Chinese Women's Magazines.’ Seoul Journal Of Business, 17(1), 155-182. Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada 2012 ‘China’s Growing Importance.’ Emerging and Growing Markets. 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Zhou, Nan & Dou, Wenyou 2007 ‘When In China, Advertise as the Chinese Think’ American Academy of Advertising Conference Proceedings, 119-120 Zhu, Y. 2009. ‘Confucian Ethics Exhibited in the Discourse of Chinese Business and Marketing Communication.’ Journal Of Business Ethics, 88:517-528. doi:10.1007/s10551-009-0299-2 Appendix The Print Ads: Sanju Pharmaceuticals Source: http://adsofchina.wordpress.com/ Read More