1. Opinion
This is the first time I am experiencing a culture different to the Hispanic/Latino culture.
Since I moved to an Asian country I started noticing the huge differences in regards of mass media
communication and advertisements. Taiwanese people have a very conservative culture. Media is
limited to none “explicit graphic exposures”. I went from pretty much reading yellow press to
reading only about altered stories with cartoon graphics explaining the happenings.
I came across this article written by Neleen Leslie. This actually targets one of my points of
view in regards with advertisements. She does states that advertisements are influenced by the
culture. Many groups of people’s are targeted in different ways according to their values, norms,
or customs. I actually do agree with her. In fact product promotions should be adapted to the
culture of the target group. For instance, Taiwanese culture is conservative; on contrary Latino
culture is a little more opened. An example of this is this: in Honduras, regardless of the product
you are trying to sell, plug in two beautiful young girls with very little clothe and your product sales
will increase. Now if you try this in Taiwan your product might end up being banned from
promoting sexual explicit images and you probably end up being kicked out of the country. A
previous investigation must be done in the area before launching a new campaign.
Another point effectively exposed by Neleen is the religious values. Through my short life
of experience I have seen that certain religious groups show a positive response when the item or
product being sold contains any relation with a biblical image. Even though some groups find more
attractive this, others feel offended. For example in the Muslim religion, the uses of biblical names
are prohibited.
This topic does bring up my attention. Some media says advertisements define and
transform the culture; I will completely disagree. Advertisements are adapted to the culture. They
must be morphed and be made appropriate to the area its being sold. Of course like in every
theory or analytical discussion, there are always exceptions like the “Impossible is nothing”
campaign launched by Adidas and the “Just do it” campaign by Nike.