There is no doubt that the current consumer culture is the most competitive the world has ever experienced and marketers are competing to a have a piece of the customer share. The global repercussions emanating from the global repercussions coupled with the financial constraints affect consumers and producers alike. To avoid business closure, firms are forced to learn the art of advertising in order to increase sustainable competitive advantage in controlling the market share. This paper limits itself to discussing the issue of advertising and consumer culture, including the relationship between these factors. For this reason, it examines Wang and Sun’s peer reviewed article that examined the role of beliefs and attitudes of consumers in online advertising. This comparison of consumer beliefs and attitudes is made between consumers in the USA and Romania.
Advertising as an art and science
Advertising is an art in itself because advertising agencies must engage in innovation and creativity to come up with brilliant advertising campaigns characterized by a combination of intuition, originality, and artistic talent. This is emphatically crucial in order to win the attention of the consumers. However, achieving such a feat calls for the application of sophisticated techniques that are sure to target customer preferences in addition to creating awareness regarding the products being advertised. Above all, mastery of consumer culture is the most important objective that must studied critically in order to come up with winning commercials to suit the changing consumer cultures.
Wang and Sun’s Article on Advertising and Culture
According to Wang and Sun (87), the role of consumer beliefs and attitudes has, in the recent past, received increased interest owing to its influence on online advertising. Wang and Sun (87) argue that consumer beliefs and attitudes towards online advertising play a critical role in influencing the outcome of advertising effectiveness. While the effects that influence online advertisement in developed countries such as the United States are well documented, little is known about developing countries such as Romania. This observation made Wang and Sun (88) to develop a desire of wanting to investigate the aspects that influence advertising across different cultures. This reason led to the comparison of effects of online advertising between the USA and Romania. The authors found out that cultural differences and adaptations did play a role in the traditional advertising environment, and as well, it did exert the same influence on online advertising. Since the internet and the effects of globalization have made the world a global village, an examination of the cultural influences from online advertising provides useful implications for individuals and businesses intending to expand (Wang and Sun 88).
Organization and Objectives
The article is divided into the major segments depending on the objectives of the study. The first objective entails creating a model that attempts to provide a criterion for examining the relationship among the influencing factors for online advertising. The model identified the three factors as attitudes towards online advertising, consumer behavioral responses, and beliefs on online advertising. The second objective entailed conducting an exploration of how culture affects the three factors identified above.
Wang and Sun (88) conducted this study based on the analysis of how findings from this study will benefit the international marketing field in addition to providing useful information to researches involving the examination of cross-cultural perspectives. They based this assumption on the notion that past literatures had not examined the relationship among the behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes with regard to their influence on advertising, as well, in deepening the understanding of the advertising hierarchy. On the other perspective, the choice of online advertising was aimed at the provision of useful insights into the uniqueness and effectiveness of technological advertising as opposed to the traditional mediums of advertising.
Review of relevant literature
In their examination of consumer beliefs and attitudes regarding advertising, Wang and Sun (88) examined existing consumer beliefs and the general attitudes that consumers harbor towards advertising. Findings from their examination of past cultures revealed varying interpretations from different scholars. First, Wang and Sun (89) found out that a section of literature assumed that the general attitudes of consumers towards advertising and consumer beliefs were equally varied and interchangeable in conceptual and operational terms. On the other hand, they found out that these concepts varied depending specific attributes and consumers evaluation of cognitive abstractions.
Many a researcher argued that beliefs on advertising are influenced heavily by the costs and benefits that consumers derive from advertising. Importantly, the authors postulate that beliefs shape attitudes on advertising because before an advert captures the attention of the consumer, the consumer must have to process the information and relate it to a specific attitude before making an informed decision. Consumers’ social and economic life is also other major factors that influenced the consumers’ culture. Issues such as the use of the product, and the product identification also play a critical role.
Relating Consumer Culture to advertising
The globalization of consumer markets is an eminent reality and this can be evidenced from the global presence of multinational corporations in every corner of the globe. The rapid adoption of the internet as a powerful advertising medium has elicited different consumer responses (Wang and Sun 89).Findings from research have provided immense support that attitudes and beliefs of consumers impact online advertising and shopping behaviors. Advertising and culture were also found to be intrinsically linked because culture entails an examination of individual’s living patterns. People live according to specific patterns, attitudes, and consume based on defined lines. Therefore, advertising is defined to reflect a common symbolic culture that reflects the consuming patterns of such consumers (Wang and Sun 90).
Equally, the effects of advertising on the society and culture are an eminent topic in the marketing arena. Proponents of international marketing have argued that the cultural backgrounds of consumers have a direct influence on their attitudes and beliefs, which in turns influences their responses and interpretations of advertising. To advertisers and online marketers, understanding cultural differences when designing commercials for commodities and services is emphatically crucial in order to design messages that are aligned with their cultures and beliefs (Wang and Sun 90). This can be evidenced from the differences in commercial advertisements across different cultures. For instance, Wang and Sun (90) cited empirical evidences collected on consumer attitudes and preferences towards advertising in different countries from different continents. Findings from the evidence suggested that American and Chinese consumers exhibited different attitudes towards advertising.
Study on Romania and USA
Romania is less developed and has lagged behind when it comes to transition to a free market economy and democracy. It is a member of the European Union and it possesses the entire relevant infrastructure to facilitate the adoption of technology as a marketing medium. Although the Romanians have openly accepted the internet as a useful communication and information medium, majority of consumers are reserved and cautious regarding the use of the internet as a medium for conducting their shopping activities (Wang and Sun 92). This is in part due to their conservative cultures and in part due to the risks associated with conducting financial transactions over the internet.
On the other hand, the United States is a well-developed country with mature online advertising industry. The use of the internet in the United States is well developed and majority of consumers are well aware of online promotional tools. For instance, the online credit card system is well developed such that conducting shopping activities from the online platform is safe, easier, and convenient. Consumer culture in the USA openly accepts this advertising medium but the only impediment is the issue of consumer privacy.
Wang and Sun’s comparison of the American and the Romanian cultures revealed five key common beliefs that influence advertising. These factors are information seeking, economic implications, entertainment, credibility, and value corruption (Wang and Sun 102). These factors had significant influences on the attitudes and beliefs thereby influencing their consumption cultures. First, the economic implication played a significant factor because consumers believed that advertising was important to the economy because it acts as a stimulant to economic development and competition. Second, advertising was viewed as a critical element in providing information regarding the availability of products in the market. Entertainment entailed the provision of an emotional link between the consumers and the object being advertised. Credibility affects individual’s attitudes and believes depending on the level of trustworthiness on online advertising (Wang and Sun 102). On the aspect of corruption value, consumers viewed online advertising as medium for enabling fraudulent activities thereby undermining the social system. In general, the study showed that the Romanian culture was more reserved and shopping behaviors were influenced by their cultural beliefs and value systems. Being a developing economy, advertising was slowly transitioning into becoming a major communication tool. Wang and Sun’s research did provide important information on the aspect of consumer culture on advertising in addition to providing the relationship between the components that influence consumer-shopping behaviors.
Summary
The global advertising market is growing at an increasing rate and majority of markets have seen the need to understand the art and science of advertising according to the confines of particular cultures. The effects of globalization and the advent of the internet have made it easy for multinational corporations to market their products in international markets. However, their operational objectives become challenging due to the different consumer cultures in different parts of the globe. For this reason, marketers and advertisers cannot use standardized advertisement messages to inform consumers of the availability of their products. For this reason, they are forced to design adverts and commercials that suit the cultures, behavior patterns, and attitudes of the targeted consumers in order to capture their attention.
This paper examined Wang and Sun’s article that was aimed at investigating the aspect of online advertising in two different cultures; the USA and Romania. The article examined the relationships of beliefs, attitudes, and other consumer behaviors with regard to online advertising. The findings from the article showed that consumer culture plays a significant role in influencing advertisement. Finally yet important, findings from Wang and Sun’s article provided important information to individuals, businesses, and organizations willing to do business in multicultural environments.
Work Cited
Wang, Ying, and Sun, Shaojing. “Examining the role of beliefs and attitudes in online
advertising: A comparison between the USA and Romania", International
Marketing Review, 27.1 (2010): 87 - 107
