For every part of the world, companies have different commercials. A commercial must fit the culture of a country and its behaviour patterns. In this blog the differences between Japanese and German commercials will be analyzed. For comparing advertising methods in these two countries, I choose McDonald’s with its commercials. Later on, a comparison with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory will follow.
Japans commercials are full of colours, animation effects and loud voices. The voices are really high! When you look at particular scenes, you will see how full the picture is of effects and background illustrations. Sometimes you have a lot of people in the background, or you can say crowds! Japan is using every each tiny corner of a picture to fill it in. For Germany, this kind of design is not shared. For us Germans, these overloaded scenes are not enjoyable to watch. It is just too much.
When we analyze the German commercial of McDonald’s, the differences are immediately seen. A calm way designs the whole set without any special effect or overloaded illustrations. The cuts are done softly. By the Japanese advertisements, the cuts were faster. The German McDonald’s commercial looks more realistic and based on honest thoughts. When you think about the fact that you want to eat dinner straight in the car, because it smells so good!
In most Japanese adverts, the scenes based on entertaining and showing a performance. They are not so realistic, or you can say the scenes did not based on everyday life moments, like in the German advert. When we combine these findings with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, it is possible to find an explanation for the actions made by designing these films. The two dimensions, masculinity versus femininity and individualism versus collectivism, are essential to understand the differences.
With a score of 67 by individualism versus collectivism, Germany belongs to the side of the individualists. Germans always try to self-optimize and loyalty based on personal preferences. Germany’s way of communicating and behaving is direct and honest, Germans like realistic situations. The man in the car tried not to eat the dinner; he tried to hold on the feeling of hunger until he is at home. But he could not. This shows a direct and realistic situation a lot to people have when they drive from McDonald’s home. A lot of people cannot wait and start eating in the car. The whole clip shows one individual and his fight to self-optimize himself by not eating the food. Sadly, he failed. But that shows how good McDonalds is; no one can wait to eat.
With a score of 66, Germany is considered a masculine society. Germans have a lot of self-esteem in every task or situation. This fits again to the situation in the advert. When you connect “masculine” to business actions, it means that performance is highly valued, status is often shown and people rather live in order to work. But by designing the advert Germany is more feminine, the advert is slow and calm.
Japan scores 46 on the individualism dimension. This means that Japan belongs to a more collective culture. It is not as collective as china maybe, but the harmony of a group is more important than the individual itself. That is seen in the Japanese adverts. Every time there are many people, everything is done to impress a particular group of interests.
With 95 points, Japan is one of the most masculine societies in the world. The adverts are aggressive with all the effects and loud voices. It is fast and in one clip two people were in a fight, which Burger might better. In a high masculine culture, everything is about being better than the competitor. The way they rise the Burger in the adverts is for a German a little bit “overloaded”. The German advert shows this rising of McDonald’s Burgers more softly and harmonious. It fits that Japanese people want to perform and always have a special presentation, that is why all the effects are made.
Global Communications Research 