Current Situation

Literature Review

Opening: (introduction to the lit review)

Research on commercials’ visual strategies remains an unexplored area. Previous studies mainly focus on the narrative styles conveyed TV commercials and their application in different cultural markets. However, little research has been to investigate the visual strategies, such as visual storytelling and cinematography in the commercials of some certain transnational brands in cultural contexts. This research aims to fill that gap by conducting a comparative study on the visual characteristics of 4 transnational TV commercials published in Chinese and American markets.

Body (the reasoning, to back up the main point (Another body to back up another point) (Don’t combine too many things together) clarification, breaking things down)

Visual is believed to be more powerful than verbal presentations, especially in international markets where the consumers share not verbal but visual languages to a great extent. Moreover, the power of advertising is considered as “more concise and more easily and quickly processed than verbal language” by many researchers. (Zhou, Zhou & Xue 2005, 111; Berger 1998; Lester 2000)

On the other hand, it has also been argued that people from different cultural backgrounds obtain different image reading references. For instance, Nisbett (2003) pointed out that people from high-context culture, like some Asian countries, tended to pay more attention to the background information of a picture. He explained that: “easterners live in a more socially complicated world and have to pay more attention to the context of a situation" (Frith 2007)

For the first time, Zhou and other scholars conducted an exploratory study on the specific storytelling and cinematographic techniques employed in the commercials randomly selected from 3 Chinese channels and 3 US channels from May to July, 2001. They identified some visual variables associated with high-context, low-context cultural values. And they confirmed some of the hypotheses about the general visual differences between Chinese and US TV commercials.

However, that study is only “a first step that examines the overall differences between the ads of two different societies” (Zhou, Zhou & Xue 2005, 117). It needs further research on the visual strategies adapted by the commercials of specific transnational brands to achieve more precision.

On the other hand, the commercials’ implication will be more quantitative if viewers’ responses to those visual variables are provided. Therefore, it may lead to more pragmatic findings to examine how viewers in a low-context country respond to the visual images from a high-context country, and vice versa.

Closing (one cause and effect map for each problem)

It will generate visual manipulation strategies for culturally based advertising campaigns, by conducting the research on the visual characteristics associated with cultural values of some specific transnational brands within Chinese and US markets. And it will justify those conclusions through the investigation on the viewers’ responses to the commercials from the counterpart cultures.

References:

Frith, Katherine. Karan, Kavita (2007). Global Visuals: Is A Picture Worth A Thousand Words? Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2007 Annual Meeting, p1-22, 22p

Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently…and why. NY: Free Press

Zhou, Shuhua. Zhou, Peiqin. Xue, Fei. Visual Differences in U.S. and Chinese Television Commercials. Journal of Advertising; Spring2005, Vol. 34 Issue 1, p111-119, 9p, 2 charts, 1 graph