Advertising Practices in the US and the UK Essay

In spite of the many cultural similarities between the United States and the United Kingdom, there are significant differences between American and British television advertising. Advertising content in the two countries is substantially different today, even though early British television adverts had a tendency to be made in the American style, and supported by American research methodologies, when television advertising was introduced into British culture in 1955 (Lannon, 1986). Although several differences in the two countries’ television advertising practices have been identified in previous research, this study focuses on one in particular: difference in ad content. This research sets out to discuss said differences in ad content and explores the motivations for these differences. This discussion will examine specific media groups in two different societies and discuss their differences, contributing to developing an understanding of different kinds of media practices. Comparing advertising practices in the United States and United Kingdom is relevant for several reasons: because both countries are highly developed industrial consumer societies, consequently, the same categories of consumer products would be expected to appear in both countries; the British system of regulating TV advertising has been regarded superior to the American approach (Buell, 1977); the deep-seated and widespread belief in the United Kingdom that British culture and American culture are both individually based on different assumptions that are reflected in their respective advertising practices (Weinberger & Spotts, 1989a). Advertising Defined â€Å"Advertising – apart from its more or less hidden purposes – is a form of communication between a sender and a receiver of a message† (Borrelli, 2010). Advertising is deemed as the business of â€Å"bringing into notice; spec. by paid announcement in a printed journal, by prominent display of placards, etc† (Online Oxford English Dictionary), an activity to â€Å"the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements† (Merriam Webster Online). It does not matter whether the advertised item is a product, a service or a better version of ourselves (Myers, 1994). According to Sherry (1987), â€Å"advertising is a system of symbols synthesized from the entire range of culturally determined ways of knowing that is accessible through ritual and oriented toward both secular and sacred dimensions of transcendental experience in hyperindustrial society†(pp. 443-444). McLuhan (1970) refers to it as the cave art of the twentieth century. As art, Williams (1980) perceives advertising as the official art of modern capitalist society, Feasley (1984) as fitting the definition of art by its enrichment and intensification of life, as well as a reflection of our lives, and Borghini, Visconti, Anderson & Sherry (2010) as matching the tendency of art to embody universal fantasies, feelings, and thoughts advertising expresses the rational and emotional experiences and moods of consumers. In his analysis of advertising, Schudson (1984) describes advertising as capitalist realism, which he defines as a set of aesthetic practices promoting and celebrating a certain political economy. Schudson’s (1984) description comes from his understanding of socialist realism, which presents a standard version of reality that is simplified, collective, optimistic, progressive, and socially integrative. Capitalist realism celebrates the choice of the consumer in defense of materialism and individualism by representing consumer satisfaction as an idealized form. â€Å"‘Advertising is capitalism’s way of saying â€Å"I love you† to itself’—(and, as we all know, love means never having to say you’re sorry) (Weinberger & Spotts, 1989a, pp. 44). † Accordingly, Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton (1981) say that advertising promotes forms of materialism that are instrumental as well as terminal. Advertising works at the level of semiology to provide goods with meaning, and at the level of semiotics to bring together domestic and political economies into a culture whose dominant force is consumption. By teaching the meaning of and use of goods, advertising helps create understanding; it helps make the categories of culture stable and visible (Douglas & Isherwood, 1979). Semiology is the study of signs and symbols from a general point of view, and through its different meanings, semiotics, by defining a framework, analyzes the signs within this framework and through differentiation with other elements, allows one to make a selection and be more precise in the understanding of the meaning (Depaux, 2011). Semiology and semiotics are especially useful in examining the communication of messages (Ashwin, 1984). Symbols create a culture’s worldview and philosophy. A cultural system acts as both a model of and a model for reality. Advertising can then be seen to shape and reflect reality. Thus, advertising can be viewed as a cultural system, and individual advertisements as a performance exhibiting the larger system (Sherry, 1987). Although research on this topic is underdeveloped (Borghini et al. , 2010), McCracken (1988) says that advertising messages have a cultural meaning in everyday life. Additionally, Elliot (1997) and Willis (1990) discuss advertising as a cultural product consumed symbolically by consumers independently of the products being advertised. So, as British and American cultures are both based on different assumptions (Carey, 1975; Lannon, 1986), and as advertising can be viewed as a cultural system, the two respective cultures (American and British) are mirrored in their respective advertising. Effects of Culture How does television advertising content in the United States and the United Kingdom reflect cultural differences? Consumers in different countries have different ways of deciding which brands to purchase (Zaichkowsky & Sood, 1989), and they have different attitudes about advertising (Durvasala, S. Andrews, J. C. , Lyonski, S. , & Netemeyer, R. G. , 1993). These different ways of doing and thinking about things is called culture; it is the complex of values, ideas, attitudes, and other meaningful symbols that allow persons to communicate, interpret, and evaluate as members of a society (Engel, Blackwell & Miniard, 1995). Every culture is a complex web of social relations, religious beliefs, languages and consumption attitudes and habits. All of which impact how advertising is delivered and received by society members (Tse, Belk & Zhou, 1989). Abd. Rahim and Osman (2005) conducted a study that examined how commercials in Malaysia were impacted by globalization. As a part of their research, they made use of ten consumer culture constructs that were developed by Harris and Morgan (1987) and later adapted by Engel, Blackwell and Miniard (1990) to rationalize how advertising is effective in creating our culture. According to Abd. Rahim and Osman (2005) these constructs are â€Å"projected† (p. 36) into advertisements. The constructs are: 1) sense of self and space, 2) communication and language, 3) dress and appearance, 4) food and feeling habits, 5) time and time consciousness, 6) relationships, 7) value and norms, 8) beliefs and attitudes, 9) mental processes and learning and 10) work habits and practices. Alden, Steenkamp and Batra (1999) support the existence and use of these constructs with their culture positioning theory that implies that, as a rule there are three brand positioning strategies used in advertising strategies, specifically the Local, Foreign and Global Consumer Culture Positioning (LCCP, FCCP, and GCCP). Those behaviors are categorized in the form of identification in advertisements to whether they are local, foreign or global in terms of brand positioning† (Abd. Rahim & Osman, 2005, p. 36). The ten culture constructs paired with the culture positioning theory further sustain the advertising as a cultural system concept and shed light on the cultural reasons behind the differences in advertising content across geographical boundaries. Abd. Rahim and Osman (2005) suggest that the most profound effect of advertising upon consumers is in creating a culture that values the pursuit of certain lifestyles. David Slayden (1999) offers a complementary view to Abd. Rahim and Osman’s (2005) assessment of advertising effects: advertising identifies the important myths, symbols, and stories of culture and associates them with a product or service. Initially, British advertising often mirrored American ad experience. During this time, commercials were highly â€Å"unsuited to British tastes† (Nevett, 1992, p. 65). Commercials were being branded as intrusive. British television in the 50s was drastically different from American television; it had only one channel (BBC1) and saturation was low, only 16 percent coverage of private homes (Moskowitz, 1953). The introduction of commercial television into British life was a public corporation with a charter from the government, Independent Television Authority (ITV) (Burdett, 1955). ITV was proposed with the intention to set new standards of technical excellence, â€Å"bring â€Å"new verve into political discussions, improve the pace, and revive personality† (Burdett, 1955, p. 184). The BBC channel was inadequate, to say the least. As a service without a rival, it has tended to coast along†¦when it comes to drama and popular entertainment, one misses the technical proficiency and the pace and brightness of American TV productions†¦the accidents that happen on BBC television are startling to an American viewer. No one seems dismayed here if transmission breaks down and the screen goes black for five minutes. No one seems surprised if a program runs over for fifteen or twenty minutes; and if you see a news anchor talking, but there’s no voice—well that happens too. From time to time, the stagehands will wander out in front of the camera. Its all very casual†¦announcers are supposed to be as devoid of personality as conceivably possible. (Burdett, 1955, pp. 183-184) Also during this time, opinion leaders were opposed to the commercialization of British television: â€Å"The TV monster†¦would bring in its wake a host of undesirable things—the debasement of taste, the corruption of youth, the breakdown of law, and a huckster’s riot of vulgarity† (Burdett, 1955, p. 180). Lord Reith compared commercial television to smallpox, the Black Death, and the Bubonic Plague; when approved by Parliament in 1955, it did so against fierce opposition in the House of Lords (Nevett, 1992). British advertising then underwent a evolution during the 60s and 70s in an effort to infuse ‘Britishness’ (Dickason, 2000, p. 162) into their advertising practices, and additionally to revoke Americanization of British television. In an effort to sell a product and entertain a viewer at the same time, the advertiser â€Å"accepted that he was an unwanted visitor in peoples homes; if they were to let him in at all, or to let him return regularly, then he had better behave politely, quietly, and entertainingly† (Garrett, 1986). British advertising began to employ understated humor and a soft-sell approach, and had begun to make frequent use of features inherent in British culture, such as the persistence of class separation and affection for eccentricity (Nevett, 1992). Soft sell focuses predominantly on the entertainment factor of commercials and is considered noninvasive. As opposed to British advertising, American advertising techniques implore a hard-sell approach. This hard sell approach focuses on disseminating information and pressuring the consumer to buy.