Advertising across cultural borders

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, Nürtingen University, language: English, abstract: When someone goes to another country and turns on the television or the radio or opens a magazine, he will find advertising which is different in comparison to what he is familiar with. One can learn a lot about the country and its culture if he looks close enough at their advertisements. As Jean-Marie Dru in his book 'Disruption' says 'Nothing reflects a country and age better than its advertising.' (Tretyak, 2001, p. 185). One can find these differences not just in advertisings of local companies; they are also in advertisings of international companies. A good example is the commercial for the new VW Golf GTI. In Germany it is shown as a car for men who want to have a 'cool' car. Here the focus is either on the experience older men already had with the former GTI or on the horse power of that car. When watching the commercial in the United States this is different. They have several drafts but all are very similar. A German engineer says that it is the time to 'unpimp' the car of a young man which is damaged at the same time. Then the Golf GTI is shown. It is still presented as a 'cool' and pimped car but which is already pimped when it is bought, so it does not need any aftermarket tuning. The last sentence of the engineer is 'VW, German engineer in the house' with a strong German accent. So they also use the popular German engineering for their commercial and show the Volkswagen Group as a young company by choosing the way they speak. Here the focus is on young men who like to drive pimped cars.