Cultural Influences in Television Commercials

Abstract

Advertising is said to be a “distorted mirror” that reflects certain cultural values of the host country in which it exists (Pollay, 1986, 1987). In this study, 22 dominant cultural values are identified from an analysis of a sample of 80 television advertisements taken from Singapore and Malaysia in 1998. A comparison of cultural values identified in the two countries yields several interesting observations. Television commercials shown in Malaysia do not carry the value “sex” and “work”, whereas those shown in Singapore do not portray the value “leisure”. Both countries show a significant tendency to use more symbolic values than product attribute values in retail advertising. Moreover, the value “individualism” is used more often in television commercials shown in Singapore than in Malaysia. This is likely due to the fact that Malaysia is still hesitant to promote values that are perceived to run counter to established conventions. As for Singapore, the government has been relatively neutral in advertising content as long as religion, language and race are not exploited. Most commercials therefore tend to portray materialistic pursuits.

Key Words:

• Advertising
• cultural values
• gender
• international
• Malaysia
• offensive advertising
• product attributes
• regulation
• sex appeals
• Singapore
• symbolic values
• television commercials