A Study On Sino-American Cross-cultural Values On The Basis Of Analysis On Chinese & American Beverage Advertising Appeals

This study intends to test the idea that to which degree advertising reflects cultural values through advertising appeals. Edward Hall and Geert Hofstede's cultural values, and Pollay A. Richard's advertising appeal system are employed as theoretical frameworks. 150 Chinese and 150 American beverage advertisements are collected from the internet for this study. All the data were run by the powerful software SPSS 13.0 to test the frequency of each appeal appeared in advertisements and whether the difference can be attributed to the difference in two nations'cultural characteristics.The study has found that Chinese beverage ads tend to use the appeals"family","community"to highlight the value of High Information Context and Low Individualism;"affiliation","nurturance"to highlight the value of Public Space;"tradition"to underline the value of Polychronic Time;"status"to highlight the value of High Power Distance. While American beverage ads tend to use"effective"to underline the value of Monochronic Time and High Masculinity;"freedom","security"to highlight personal space;"modern","technological"to stress the value of Slow Information Flow;"adventure"and"enjoyment"to underline the value of Low Uncertainty Avoidance.