A Brief Study on Chinese and Foreign Commercial Advertisements.doc

Study on Chinese and Foreign Commercial AdvertisementsAbstract: With the flourishing development of Chinas economy and the entry into the WTO,enterprises at home and abroad are facing the problems of commercial advertisements integrated with the world, namely the difference between Chinese and western commercial advertisements. This article has used a number of examples to analyze Chinese and western advertisements mainly from the cultural background, thinking mode, linguistic difference and so on. It will explore the differences to upgrade advertisements innovation level(创意水平)in China into a new stage.Key words：Commercial advertisement; comparison between China and foreign country; cultural difference； 摘 要: 随着中国对外贸易的蓬勃发展及加入世界贸易组织，中外企业都面临着商务广告与国际接轨的问题，即中西方商务广告差异性问题。本文通过大量广告实例，从文化背景，思维方式，语言差异等角度对中外商务广告进行具体的分析，探讨了中外商务广告的差异性，将中国的广告创意水平提高到新的阶段。关键词：商业广告 ；中西对比； 文化差异;1. Introduction1.1. Conception of Commercial Advertisements Advertising is a promotional means which is generally valued and wildly applied by enterprises. Commercial advertisement is made for benefit and for publicizing a product so that people would like to buy it. It is a mass communication activity, the goal of which is sales promotion at a certain cost, which spreads commodities or services and other relevant economic information through specific media. So we can say Advertisement is the best way to spend money advocating their products and enterprises, so as to increase their publicity and sales. This is also the purpose of advertisement. From the cultural perspective, the culture environment where commercial advertisements spread is actually a kind of objective existence of culture. Commercialadvertisementsarepromoterofmerchandiseandbroadcasterofculture.Ittakescultureasitscarrier.Atthesametime,thecultureuseadvertisementstospread.Therefore,bothadvertisementsandculturemutuallyexistandcontributeto thesociety. We can see that, knowing the commercial advertising culture and clarifying the different cultural background are of great importance to our commercial advertisings creation. So I think the analysis of the differences between Chinese and western culture is the premise of knowing the differences of commercial advertising.1.2. Effect of Commercial Advertisement Commercial advertisement is not only an economic phenomenon with its utilitarianism, but also a cultural phenomenon with its thought. Therefore, commercial advertising on the one hand, can promote the sales, guide consumption with its commercial functions. On the other hand, it also should serve the society, spread ideas, morality, cultural conceptions that fit for the demands of society and conform to the interest of people. So it necessarily has its social function.1.3.Purpose of study on Commercial Advertisement1.3. Purpose of Studying Commercial Advertisement Usually, commercial advertisement is an important means of communicating information among commodity producers, operators and consumers, or an important way for business to occupy the market, sell products and provide labor services. This paper, by analyzing similarities and differences of culture, language, presenting of commercial advertising between China and foreign countries, tries to understand the differences between them and find out the points in foreign advertising that deserves study, strengthen the communication with international advertising, develop Chinese advertising and make China enter into the ranks of advanced countries in advertising. Professor ChenPeiai of Fudan university once pointed out that the difference in advertising levels between China and the developed countries lies in the more highlighting cultural background(1992;94), especially for a nation with five thousand years historical and cultural background, the advertisings style, concept, and language etc. have a clear difference from that of foreign countries.2.The Relationship Between Culture and Language Culture is the all and the one which consists of social behavior, art, beliefs, customs transmission through society conduct and all other products of human work and thinking. Language is accompanied by the creation of the human society; it is the direct manifestation of thinking. Language reflects the characteristics of a nation, which not only includes the nations historical and cultural backgrounds, but holds on the nations view of life, the way of life and thinking. Culture is diverse, language is also varied (Chen, 2000:20).When the nation as a language, living areas, economic life and psychological stability community appears in the history of mankind, language is deeply stamped with the brand of a nation; it is the most typical characterization of the nation and national culture. Language is a means of expressing cultural customs. As a part of culture, it plays an important role in culture. Language can not separate from related culture to be independent. Some sociologists believe that the language is the cornerstone of cultureno language, no culture (Pan, 2001:30).From another aspect, language is affected by language and reflected the culture. Language is based on the historical and cultural aspects. The nations way of thinking, values, concepts, habits and behavior will affect aesthetic language development. The formation of a national culture, development and absorption ought to pass the language to achieve. Language and culture influence each other; we should try to understand language and culture and learn them. Language is like a mirror which reflects the entire culture, and every nation has its own culture. Language as the carrier and idea of culture, its representation form is influenced and restricted by culture. Understand their unique cultural background to understand the language features. Only more exposure to foreign cultures, familiar with different language national history amorous feelings, way of life, value and national psychology, open up their vision, learn more about the cultural and language differences. Culture promotes the development of advertising language, the language of advertising propagandize its culture. Chinese and Western advertising language has its own unique form of language which contain the beautiful scenery of language and culture. The charm of the language of instruction is fully displayed in the advertisement. Meanwhile, the Chinese and Western social and cultural knowledge which contained in language make us experience the infinitude delight. Chinese and Western advertising languages let us deepen our understanding of foreign countries, and bring to the world of cross-cultural exchanges.3. The Differences Between Chinese and Foreign Business Advertisements3.1. The Culture Difference Between Chinese and Foreign Business Advertising Advertising reflects the national culture in some extent. This article discussed the cultural differences between the East and West reflected in the Sino-British advertising from these three aspects: group orientation and personal orientation, indirectness and directness, authority and fact.3.1.1 Collectivism Orientation vs. Individualism Orientation A culture high in individualism would emphasize personal achievement, innovation, autonomy, and adventure. A stronger interpretation of this dimension predicts that individuals often consider their own priorities and those families ahead of others, often neglecting the broader needs of society. These include the United States, Australia, and Great Britain, where individual achievement is highly valued and clearly a mark of success. In contrast, a society low in individualism would likely endorse group harmony, social order, conformity in group relationships, deference to reference group norms, family relationships, and loyalty to consensus viewpoints. These societies exhibit collectivist behavior, they advocate individualism orientation. Chinese culture has a long history and the alcohol cultural is significant. To illustrate the quality of goods, they attempt to explain how long the water life by quoting the history. For example: (1) Legend quality, Century ZHANG YU.( ZHANG YU Tokay) (2) Tang palace drink, JIAN NAN CHUN (JIAN NAN CHUN Drink) Those two alcohols long history were given expression to only sentences, showing the deep feeling toward consumers, narrowing the gap between the products and consumers (Chen, 2000: 62). The Western countries insisted the short term oriented culture; the main reason is the history is shorter than China. They dont do the business like Chinese who often use the factors of history and tradition, but use the strong and direct marketing strategy (hard sale), a product of the "immediate results" as a selling point. For example: "go and get it at once", "buy it" , "fit it well", "take action right now", "call now" etc. is the common use in foreign ads (Zhu, 1996:50). Value is the different views and attitudes of people regarding the matter. China is a traditional agricultural economy society, it is said that Chinese cultural system emphasized the collectivism and authoritative character, using the natural value orientation. This ad is a manifestation of this feature of Chinese culture: HUA LI killing mosquito tool"silence without mosquito" dedication. This ad was excellent for using the partial tone of "mosquito" and "listen". It builds the image of unknown to public dedication of products and corporation. To praises of the heroes of our community who quietly worked hard, this identity arouses the resonance in the minds of vast consumers. But in the Western capital society, individualism、equality and the dominant natural were the orientation ,they stress personality differences. This can be seen from many American ads products, there are many differences trying to explain from, even in the absence of any differences as well. In the United States ads, there is a popular phrase, it would be: to create different. For example: One airline painted the vivid colors on the airframe in order to catch peoples eye. In fact, the plane and service of other airplane company are not much different. Whether the culture is eastern collectivism orientation or western individualism orientation, both of them are embodied in the communication of respective culture. Such cultural differences between China and western countries usually lead to the differences in advertising. For example, Chinese people usually have conformity psychology. They always believe that the things most people do wont be wrong. So when choosing commodities, they usually follows the habit of conformity. Chinese advertisers make full use of this kind of psychology to rendering group behavior in advertising behavior , which results in the appearance of such words in advertising as"我们都喝" "深受大众喜爱" "老少皆宜", "大家好才是真的好" and so on. This highlights the popularity of the advertisement audience. Western advertising is on the contrary. Western culture advocates personalities. In their advertising, “independent/independence”, “equal”, “uniqueness/unique” and “privacy/private” often appear. For example, when Japanese Mitsubishi motor Motor Company promoted sales of its products, created the advertisement “Not all cars are created equal”. People who are familiar with the history of the United States immediately remember the American Declaration of Independence when they see the advertisement. Smart Japanese businessmen take advantage of the Americans characteristic of pursuing the personality to create it. There was an anecdote. It is said that when the famous American AD "Just do it" first performed in Hong Kong, it was translated into "想做就去做". The theme of this advertising is individual freedom, which is not surprising for in the United States. But Hong Kong, as a part of Chinese society, has traditional self-discipline. So many consumers think this advertisement has the suspicion of inducing juvenile crime. Later the advertising was changed into "应做就去做". From this we can see cultural difference has great influence on the effect of advertisement.3.1.2 Indirect Communication vs. Direct Communication A national culture is shown through the way of thinking and acting.(Lin Jicheng, 1986). A lot of comparative study shows that people using different languages adopt different way of thinking, which is caused by different cultural background. Generally speaking, the thinking mode of English-speaking people is linear thinking. They are better on analysis and logical reasoning. For example, the article of Westerners often straight to the point with a topic sentence, directly point out the main idea of the article. The Chinese-speaking people thinking mode is cylindrical. They are full of imagination and intuition. So the theme of the article is not clear at a glance, instead using a roundabout way to explain. So native English speakers usually state point of view first, and then do the inductive analysis, while the Chinese-speaking people always state reasons first, or related something irrelevant seemingly with the subject. The following two advertisements reflect the two different thinking modes. Eg:(1) “Lucky” Brand Chocolates are made of choice materials by up-to-date scientific method. The product is allowed to leave the factory only after strict examination of its quality. Owing to the influence of tropical climate on raw materials used, white spots may occasionally appear on the surface of the product, but the quality remains unchanged in that event. Please send particular to our distributors concerned. This advertisement introduces the product and material directly and does not conceal the least of perfection while stressing the quality. It is easier to attract westerners attention with frankness. On the whole, the organization of language in this advertisement is tight, direct, with no useless words, which conforms to the thinking mode of western people. (2)嘉士利,为你珍藏童真的滋味那一年,我和妹妹去乡下姥姥家,我们在田野上奔跑,在小河里钓鱼,在收割过的麦地里拾麦穗,空气里尽是迷人的清香!现在很难找到那种感觉了。田野变成了厂房,小河也不见了咦?这是什么?味道真特别,让我想起乡下麦地里那迷人的清香。嘉士利饼干,为你珍藏童真的滋味!This is a biscuits advertisement. Biscuit does not appear in the first sentence, instead. childhood memories appeared. It is this memory of the past triggered Asian nostalgic feelings, causing a kind of emotional resonance. Its creative intention is to use poetic language to describe poetic imaginary. It seems has no relationship with the subject, but in fact, it want to move people by affection, to find the theme of feeling before going to the point. In fact, the memories indicate the unique characteristic of cookies, which is consistent with the thinking mode of Chinese people. But if JiaShi Li is going to enter the international market for Western consumers, the expression of ad should be consistent with their habits of thinking- pointing out the product name and characteristics first in order to ar