ADVERTISING SUPPORT IN CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

In the age of information, advertising has become an important source of information for modern life. With the globalization of the economy, advertising is becoming a worldwide commercial activity nowadays. As different kinds of culture conflicted with each other, any commercial advertising can not only operate in the information conveying commodities, but also have a mission of cultural dissemination. Different cultural backgrounds, different values breed different advertising creativity. The study is attempted to explore the cultural differences between China and western countries through various examples, with the purpose of getting better understanding of the developing trend of advertising both at home and abroad. Language is the mirror and reflection of culture. As a special kind of expression of language, advertisement, with no doubt, can't be separated from language. Therefore, it was born with a deep print of culture inevitably. As for the cultural differences, a number of scholars have tried to explain it in different aspects. In the past on the study of cultural differences in advertising, people tended to pick the perspective of linguistics, focusing on the vocabulary, syntax and rhetoric identity, but it is not limited to language but rather a cultural phenomenon. Many academics are trying to explore cultural differences in advertisement between China and western countries. The Dutch scholar G Hofstede who took three dimensions to analyze East-West cultural differences: individualism and collectivism self-reference and ethnocentricity, color signs and symbols, were more successful. Many Chinese scholars also did some research from a variety of angles in this area, such as Niu Xiaojuan, Xu Dezhen and so on. On the basis of the formers, the author collected a large number of materials, trying to discuss cultural differences in advertisement between China and western countries. Advertisement is part of culture. Culture includes philosophy, thinking, behavior, cultural psychology, ethics, customs, traditions and religious beliefs of history, and so on. The author have read a lot of books and collected a large number of materials concerning this study. Herein the author only chooses some aspects of culture to analyze and explore the differences between China and western countries. Definition of Culture & Advertisement 2.1 Culture Culture, a hot issue at home and abroad, is a very complicated, multidimensional, and allencompassing subject. According to the definition from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Crystal, 1997:784), culture is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behavior. Culture defined consists of language, ideas, customs, beliefs, taboos, institutions, tools, techniques, and works of art, rituals, ceremonies, and other related components. And Hurford (1987:315) defines culture as the most general concept to describe the behavior of human being and history. It refers to innumerable items at different levels of generality: ideas, values, sentiments, objects, actions, tendencies and accumulations. In fact, although there are hundreds of definitions of culture, anthropologists agree that the learned ways of behaving and adapting are included in the culture, as contrasted to inherited behavioral patterns of instincts. Social scientists have divided culture into several groups of activities meeting specific need satisfaction functions. Family, politics, economics, education and religion are the ones which are known to all.

Culture and language are connecting to each other. Culture can never be discussed without mentioning the language used in it. According to Kirkpatrick (1995: 271-295), culture refers to The life way and its manifestations that are specifically to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression. Culture is an extremely complicated concept; it includes almost everything in the world, no matter material or spiritual. Language is the expression of culture. Different languages have its different cultural implication. It is limited to accept diversity culture, especially the spiritual scope. But Language is the most important code of the transfer of culture. One aspect is, as the basic part of culture, language carries culture, reflects culture, and develops culture. Another aspect is language is influenced by culture deeply in many aspects of our life. 2.2 Advertisement There are many definitions for advertisement; American Marketing Association defines advertising as the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by dandified sponsor through various media. With the development of technology and globalization, advertisement is run through into every aspect in various styles and becoming a rigueur part of our daily life. The advertisement is a commercial activity in the market economy for the image of enterprises and the brand of a product. The customers, as the audience of the advertisement, are edified by different cultural environment in their thoughts and consciousness. Advertising language, including advertising words and pictures, is a peculiar form of language, and the particularity determined its close bond with culture. Therefore the advertisement composers are inclined to design the ads on the basis of good understanding of the cultural characteristics and rack their brains to make the ads catering to the customers' cultural psychology through language skills and fancy pictures. On the contrary, without fail, we could realize the cultural differences through varied advertisements. III. Cultural Differences in Advertisement Between China and Western Counties Today, with the development of the technology and the diversity of the mass media, advertising has a pervasive influence on our daily life. However, whatever promoting strategies advertising companies use, the language is the main carrier of the message. As Vestergaard & Schroder (1985:246) point out, advertising takes many forms, but in most of them language is of crucial importance. Advertising language is presented in a style that has immediate impact with the intent of rapid persuasion. In the world market, the translation of advertising language is essential for the effective transmission of advertising and thus the sale of products. However, before the translation is undertaken, having a good knowledge of both the similar and different characteristics of advertising language used in the West and in China is a must. In this section the author would like to talk about it in the following aspects. 3.1 Values Cultural values is a criterion that people judge the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the worthy and the unworthy, the clean and the dirty, the correct and the wrong, the kind and the cruel, the just and the unjust, the decent and the indecent and so on. Psychologist Henry Murray defined that value is the psychological reflection of basic

demands, which should be changed by the real world. That is to say values are a kind of thought eager for something. In this section the author like to talk about it in the following aspects. 3.1.1 Individual vs. Collectivity Generally speaking, western culture encourages individual orientation that is more concerned about their own interests, as well as individual successes and achievements, and is self-centered, with emphasis on personal dignity, and encourages and praises those who have wealth to the challenges and difficulties of people. By comparison, the eastern nations show more hierarchical groups orientation and the orientation of the overall interests of nation and prominent family, with particular emphasis on finding family interests and family ethics and coordinating relations. Thus, the traditional Chinese culture recognizes the value of the individual, to a certain extent, from individuals and groups (family, religious and national) such cultural difference is a clear manifestation in advertising home and abroad. China is a large traditional agricultural social pattern, so it focuses on the Chinese cultural system collectivism, authoritative character. Chinese people have strong patriotic feelings, emphasizing national self-esteem, self-belief. The following examples are inclined to illustrate this view. 10 years of ups and downs, China forever in our hearts The ads not only show this brand enjoys years' of popularity but also expresses that Chinese people love their motherland through the homophonic pun. The following examples are no exception to this rule. MeiLing refrigerator Chinese life, Chinese MeiLing ChangHong Group Cooperation ChangHong shoulder the mission of dedicating itself to the service of its motherland and nation prosperity. This not only reflects the growth of China's national industry is the reality, but also expresses people's national pride and inspires love of national goods, contributing to the revitalization of the national industries. In the United States,as a dominant social individualism, personal unique personality means the pursuit of his own words, behavior, thought and distinctiveness. Advertisement of American Opel car directly advertised product unique', highlighting their seeking personality traits. All cars are the same these days. We've all heard this said. But not by anybody who knows about Opel. Coincidentally, an advertisement of Porsche sports car with a brilliant attractive picture of a red sports car running rapidly on the Highway, creates Lonely wolf image as luxury sport cars driving through a forest. There is no doubt that such advertising can meet management objectives, such as young consumers' desire for self-expression, the pursuit of brilliant psychological cause. From the above examples, it is not difficult to see that self-expression, independent spirit and values of individuals struggling to be fully reflected in the advertising. 3.1.2 Love vs. Respect To some extent, love and respect are synonymy for they have much in common. By the respect love from, and love distillated to respect is a process of quantitative and qualitative change, but they cannot be the same. Respect is always from the lower to the upper while love is equal regardless of level and class. With traditional cultural influence of each own,

Chinese advertisement is respect-oriented while western countries love-oriented. This is because in China, filial piety is a virtue. Chinese people deeply feel the responsibility of the family. Not only morally, but also legally, children have the obligation and responsibility of maintenance for the elderly. Filial piety is a faithful, honest basis. One Expression of filial piety is distinguishing elderly. Such values have been strengthened in advertising. Let's take a look at two medicine ads in China and abroad. Health Protection Yangshen in television advertising: On the Screen, the son acted by movie star Huang Rihua is worried about his father's health, so he buys him today Yangshen which will probably benefit his physical condition. But probably as a result of little communication between the father and son, it's a little difficult for the son to find the way to present Yangshen to his father. When the son is practicing father, I love you in his room, the father breaks in and looks at the son with surprise and misunderstanding. At this time, the son hands Yangshen over to his father and speaks out father, I love you, then we could see the tear in the father's eyes. Adalat Oros advertisement of preventing cardiovascular medicine: a picture of a healthy elderly full of energy and spirit and together with his newly young married wife wearing her wedding dress in front of the church, his self-confidence and charming smile on his face. Advertising language is: He should live longer than he expected. Two commercials are both good advertising, but also illustrate different cultural foundation in Chinese and Western world. One is respect oriented, and the other love oriented. YangShen advertising today shows that in the Chinese family, child shows respect to his father at first, then the love. Commercials take full advantage of the Chinese culture; achieving an effect that Yangshen is not only just for health supply but a token to express love. Likewise, Adalat Oros is a kind of medicine. It takes the performance by using humor that two people with age gap get married, the advertisements feature mock language, relaxed and candidly conveying brand concept: Love for your health is treasure and cherish life! The high confidence from high-hold head of the young lady and the crafty smile of the old fellow clearly manifested the contest between love and life. (2006(2): 119-121.) Contribution vs. Enjoyment China is a large agricultural social pattern; the Chinese put much stress on collectivism, authoritative character, submitting to nature. The advertisement reflected the characteristics of Chinese culture. Hua Li mosquito killer makes the world no mosquitoes. This arouses resonance in the minds of consumers. As for the westerners, they have a tendency of enjoyment. There is a popular saying in the USA: Work hard, and enjoy yourself. An important concept of Americans working is separating work hours and leisure time. In their view, the work is no doubt important, but entertainment and relaxation is the best way to improve efficiency. The following ads are the best certification. Enjoy absolute Vodka, enjoy life, it deserves you. (Vodka) Just for the taste of it. (Coca Cola) Be young,have fun, drink PEPSI. Take time to indulge.(NES Ice cream)These advertisements demonstrate the consumer's concept: enjoy life, seek for abundant consumption, and possession of pleasing products.

Implicative vs. Outright Different cultural backgrounds decide different expressions. Chinese people express affection, friendship and love with implicit personality in the advertising language. A Little girl used Diaopai washing powder to wash clothes while her mother went out to find job. And she left a note: Mum, I can help you with housework. This love for Mum touched all the people who watched it. The advertisement expressed the implicative and self-evident affection between wife and husband. But in western countries the expression of affection is very explicit. For instance:Take the phone to pass your love!The originality is that the daughter from thousands of miles away called her parents, who were having their dinner, and said: I love you. There is another advertisement on TOYOTA: I love what you do for me. (2003 (1): 1.) The open-and-shut character fully revealed its candor. IV. Conclusion Culture is the product of historical development of human beings. Advertising is the product of social and economic highly development. In modern society, advertising plays an increasingly heavy role. In a sense, the advertising impacts on our lives all aspects. It not only transmits product information to us, more transmit a kind of cultural awareness. As for the cultural differences, a number of scholars have tried to explain it in different aspects. In the past on the study of cultural differences in advertising, people tended to pick the perspective of linguistics, focusing on the vocabulary, syntax and rhetoric identity, but it is not limited to language but rather a cultural phenomenon. Advertisement, as a community cultural patterns, since its naissance,embodies cultural uniqueness and nationality. On the basis of the formers, the author collected a large number of materials, trying to discuss cultural differences in advertisement between China and western countries. But cultural background of one nation, after all, has obstacle. In the contemporary world, with the development of globalization, no matter Chinese or Western advertising, cultural dialogue and cross-cultural communication is absolutely necessary to survive and make further development. Thus the advertisement both in China and west can win amalgamation. Boldly speaking, our purpose is to make the current advertisement to achieve a bourn of seeking common points while reserving difference, seeking uniqueness while together. This study attempts to provide some information for the advertisers through comparison between Chinese and Western advertisements in the process of international and intercultural communication.