Cultural Masculinity/Feminity Influences on Advertising Appeals

The article written by Chingching Chang is based on a study that examines whether or not cultural masculinity and femininity influences an individual's response to advertisements and utilitarian appeals. In researching earlier work on the topic, Chingching found that a high percentage of Americans described themselves are more masculine than feminine while in Taiwanese participants the difference 4.47 for masculinity and 4.69 for femininity is negligible. In this case masculinity was described as ambitious, capable, successful, independent, goal orientated, and daring while feminine were considered to be compassionate and caring. However in the study, Chingching found that participants from the United States, a mainly "masculine" culture, preferred and believed the utilitarian advertising over the image appeal advertising. American participants also found image appeal advertisements to be more credible when they were preceded by utilitarian advertisements. In participants from Taiwan, an "androgynous" culture responded to both advertising appeals equally with no influence from the order in which they were presented. In an interview also conducted by the experimenter, she found Americans value accomplishment, being involved in multiple competitive activities and communicate in a direct straightforward way while Taiwanese participants value personal achievement, good family relations, friendliness, avoiding risk taking behaviors but encouraging activities with their loved ones and communicate in a more understanding empathic way. These outside variables may also have an effect on the different responses to advertising appeals.


Reference: Chang, Chingching "Cultural Masculinity/Femininity Influences on Advertising Appeals." Journal of Advertising Research 46.3 (2006): 315-323. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 Dec. 2009.