| Drug advertising is a potential tool for the global spread of health-oriented information, and can be seen as both a cause and a result of globalization. However, in the context of global health marketing and cross-cultural communication, local cultural values may still greatly shape the content and expression of drug ads. In order to explore if differences in ads executions are due to assumed cultural differences, the ads of Vitamin and Mineral Supplements (VMS), one of the main OTC categories, were selected from both U.S. and Chinese print media for the direct investigation in this study.;This study develops a cross-cultural content analysis framework to examine two prominent aspects of cultural characteristics manifested in U.S. and Chinese VMS ads: cultural values (individualism/collectivism, Hofstede [1980]) and cultural contexts (high/low context, Hall [1976]).;The findings seem to partially support both Hofstede's cultural value framework and Hall's cultural context framework. Fourteen out of nineteen hypotheses were completely supported by the results. But other five were failed in finding significant differences in cultural indicators between the two countries as assumed. The results suggest that although subtle changes have already taken place in both countries in the trend of global health marketing, the differences in local culture values and traditional cultural contexts are still the great forces causing the divergence in health-related advertising and communicating.;Directions for refinement and future research are identified. Managerial and academic research implications for global advertising researchers and marketers are provided. |
