Abstract

An Analysis of Global Web site Advertising: A Multi-country Comparison of Eastern and Western Markets

Daechun An, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism, University of North Texas

The visual strategies employed in top global brands¡¯ local advertising websites were compared between the two groups of nations: the high information context group (HC), consisting of Japan, Korea and China, and the low information context (LC) group, consisting of U.S., U.K., and Germany. The results of a content analysis of 253 Web ads show a clear pattern of differences in the role of visuals (literal vs. symbolic), the use and role of celebrity models, the use of photographs vs. illustrations, and the frequency of product portrayals between the two groups. Ads from high-context nations tend to rely on symbolic visuals, celebrity models featured as characters, mixed use of photographs and illustrations, and indirect portrayals of advertised products. Ads from low-context nations are found to be the opposite, reaffirming the association between Hall¡¯s information contextuality and advertising visual strategies. The findings imply that the idea of employing advertising visuals that reflect communication styles of a particular national market appears to be a promising strategy to effectively reach consumers around the world. Along this line, multinational advertisers might prefer to implement differentiated ad visual strategies in Web advertising for HC and LC markets. This study suggests that instead of "think global act local" strategy, "think global but act regional" might be appropriate if target countries can be grouped by their distinct informational contextuality of communication styles.

Key Word : Global advertising, Information context, Web advertising, Regionalization, Advertising visual