Abstract
This study shows how national contexts recurrently foreground specific myths in advertising to increase consumers’ ‘knowledge’ of the positioning of brands and their ‘liking’ of these brands. From an extended sample of New Zealand television commercials, the research isolates the theme of ‘Kiwi Ingenuity’ as an important tool to advertise a wide variety of brands. At a micro level the study illustrates how hyperbolic characterisation works to attach emotional meanings to brands and products, in particular how ingenious characters are used as hyperbolic cultural signs. The study situates these micro representation strategies in their macro cultural context, arguing that the mechanics of national myths in advertising needs to be understood within the geopolitical context.
Highlights
In the remainder of the study we want to illustrate how New Zealand professionals use culturally evocative symbolic work; setting up the nationally meaningful ingenuity myth, as a way to appeal to the heart of the New Zealand consumer audience. We argue that this portraying of Kiwi ingenuity through characters and situations is designed to arouse a sentiment of common belonging, to prompt New Zealand viewers to think of themselves as part of an “imagined community” (Anderson 1991), and to provoke increased knowledge, respect, admiration, emotion, and liking for the myth that would translate into consumption of brands and products
The New Zealand advertising case reveals the intertwining of advertising language and imagery within a national culture, and a particular local theme or myth that supports creative connections of brands and culture
We argue that the geographical and geopolitical place of a nation in the global world has a substantial influence on how idiosyncratic differences affect advertising discourse
Summary
Advertising and national culture are inextricably bound The idea that advertising is “a cultural phenomenon, culturally inspired and created within the expectations of a culture” (Taylor et al 1996: 2) is widely acknowledged by many advertising manuals (Lee/Johnson 2007; Moriarty et al 2015), specialised books (De Mooij 1994, 2014; Kloss 2001; Mattelart 1989; Mueller 2004; Nixon 2003; Dru 1996), and by many other advertising studies from different fields (Andrews/Silk 2005; Lannon/Cooper 1983; Mick/Buhl 1992; Nevett 1992). Many studies note that the cultural values portrayed and the information content in advertising varies with product categories. This in itself is in line with McCracken (1986) who suggested that “much of the meaning of goods can be traced back to the categories into which a culture segments the world” This in itself is in line with McCracken (1986) who suggested that “much of the meaning of goods can be traced back to the categories into which a culture segments the world” (p. 73) and that goods are constructed by advertising as integral to culturally specific modes of social life
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