Different cultures and advertising

Hey all! This rather long post is to help out a friend of mine get an international perspective for a Master's thesis in communications/advertising. The short version of it is, you give your perception of your culture (no matter how similar to Canadian culture it seems), a bit of information about yourself (nothing that would violate internet safety, please. ) then, finally, your opinion on 2 ads listed and one available upon request (as it's rated just a bit higher.) The most important part is your opinion on the ads.

Also, if you just want to PM me all your answers, that's perfectly fine too. ^^

The long version is her writing, and it's copypasted below. Feel free to say if you can't answer anything, to help out the survey process.

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I would like to start off by apologizing for any offence any of the ads may cause. It is not my intention to offend anyone. In the following questions please be as detailed as possible; your opinions and beliefs are the basis of my thesis. I do ask you to avoid strict religious beliefs, for that is a different subject.

So without further delay…let us start : D

Please tell me a bit about where you are from and who you are:

1- What’s your age: under 18, 18-25, 26-35, 36-45, 46-55, 56+
2- What is your sex?
3- What country are you from?
4- What area do you live in (Urban/suburban/rural)?
5- Anything you want to let me know about your country?

Please tell me a bit about your culture:

1- What is considered lucky?
2- What is considered unlucky?
3- What role do men play in your community?
4- What role do women play in your community?
5- What is expected from men in your culture?
6- What is expected from women in your culture?
7- How would you verbally express?

Love:
Hate:
How would you behave in public towards?

To family:
To coworkers:
To your boss:
To classmates:
To teachers:
To foreigners:
To people you don’t know:
8- How is your educational system built?
9- Anything else you would like to tell me about your culture?

Now the ads:

Ad one link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D31x3ygt ... re=related
1- What is the item being advertised, and what role does it play in your culture?
2- What is the general ambiance of the advertisement? What mood does it create? How does it do this?
3- If there are figures (men, women, children, animals) in the advertisement, what are they like? What can be said about their facial expressions, poses, hairstyle, hair color, age, sex, ethnicity, education, occupation, relationships (of one to the other), and so on? What do these characteristics imply about the target audience?
4- What theme or themes do we find in the advertisement? What is the advertisement about? (The plot of an advertisement may involve a man and a woman drinking, but the theme might be jealousy, faithlessness, ambition, passion, etc.)
5- What sociological, political, economic, or cultural attitudes are indirectly reflected in the advertisement? An advertisement may be about a pair of blue jeans but it might, indirectly, reflect such matters as sexism, alienation, stereotyped thinking, conformism, generational conflict, loneliness, elitism, and so on.
6- What are your own thoughts about the advertisement?

The link for ad 2 is available on request because it is rated 16+/18+

Ad three link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jOR_RCVdKc
1- What is the item being advertised, and what role does it play in your culture?
2- What is the general ambiance of the advertisement? What mood does it create? How does it do this?
3- If there are figures (men, women, children, animals) in the advertisement, what are they like? What can be said about their facial expressions, poses, hairstyle, hair color, age, sex, ethnicity, education, occupation, relationships (of one to the other), and so on? What do these characteristics imply about the target audience?
4- What theme or themes do we find in the advertisement? What is the advertisement about? (The plot of an advertisement may involve a man and a woman drinking, but the theme might be jealousy, faithlessness, ambition, passion, etc.)
5- What sociological, political, economic, or cultural attitudes are indirectly reflected in the advertisement? An advertisement may be about a pair of blue jeans but it might, indirectly, reflect such matters as sexism, alienation, stereotyped thinking, conformism, generational conflict, loneliness, elitism, and so on.
6- What are your own thoughts about the advertisement?

Please tell me a bit about where you are from and who you are:

1- What’s your age: under 18, 18-25, 26-35, 36-45, 46-55, 56+
2- What is your sex?
3- What country are you from?
4- What area do you live in (Urban/suburban/rural)?
5- Anything you want to let me know about your country?

1 - Under 18.
2 - Female
3 - USA
4 - Suburban
5 - Um... We don't have much culture (XD) Especially food culture - that's mostly Fast Food.

Please tell me a bit about your culture:

1- What is considered lucky?
2- What is considered unlucky?
3- What role do men play in your community?
4- What role do women play in your community?
5- What is expected from men in your culture?
6- What is expected from women in your culture?
7- How would you verbally express?
Love:
Hate:
How would you behave in public towards?
To family:
To coworkers:
To your boss:
To classmates:
To teachers:
To foreigners:
To people you don’t know:
8- How is your educational system built?
9- Anything else you would like to tell me about your culture?

1 - A four leaf clover.
2 - Black cats, stepping on a crack in the pavement/sidewalk...
3 - Men do a lot of the work.
4 - I see many of the women in my community as teachers or politicians.
5 - I guess we expect most of the grunt work from them.
6 - To take care of the families.
7 - Love: I love you.
Hate: I hate you.
How would you behave in public towards?
To family: Stay close to them. Talk to them. Laugh with them.
To coworkers: Talk to them if I don't know anyone else. Stay close to them.
To your boss: Joke and be nice to him/her.
To classmates: Joke and laugh with them, stay close by.l
To teachers: Wander away, unless they want to talk with me.
To foreigners: Watch for a while then continue talking with whoever I'm with.
To people you don’t know: Same as foreigners.
8 - Block scheduling and teachers who have a teacher workshop every other month or so. We have math and a few other classes half the year, then different ones for the other half. Therefore we're only doing things for half a year.
9 - ... Not really.

Ad one link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D31x3ygt ... re=related
1- What is the item being advertised, and what role does it play in your culture?
2- What is the general ambiance of the advertisement? What mood does it create? How does it do this?
3- If there are figures (men, women, children, animals) in the advertisement, what are they like? What can be said about their facial expressions, poses, hairstyle, hair color, age, sex, ethnicity, education, occupation, relationships (of one to the other), and so on? What do these characteristics imply about the target audience?
4- What theme or themes do we find in the advertisement? What is the advertisement about? (The plot of an advertisement may involve a man and a woman drinking, but the theme might be jealousy, faithlessness, ambition, passion, etc.)
5- What sociological, political, economic, or cultural attitudes are indirectly reflected in the advertisement? An advertisement may be about a pair of blue jeans but it might, indirectly, reflect such matters as sexism, alienation, stereotyped thinking, conformism, generational conflict, loneliness, elitism, and so on.
6- What are your own thoughts about the advertisement?

1 - Whatever is a soda drink. In my culture people everywhere are always drinking soda. I'd say for more than half of the US population it is at least a weekly drink. More likely daily.
2 - It creates a mood that you should be super happy if you get the drink 'Whatever'. It does this by having the Chinese man be extremely excited and joyful that he was left the 'Whatever' drink by the old man.
3 - They all seem to be pretty well off. But very disappointed that they didn't get the 'Whatever' drink. This implies that the audience could probably be anyone.
4 - The theme could be jealousy. Jealousy that the young Chinese man got the drink 'Whatever'.
5 - I'm not sure about this question. But the majority of people in this commercial were Chinese, so that could mean something.
6 - I think it's pretty funny and that if I saw it enough I might be tempted to buy the 'Whatever' drink if I had a chance.

Ad three link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jOR_RCVdKc
1- What is the item being advertised, and what role does it play in your culture?
2- What is the general ambiance of the advertisement? What mood does it create? How does it do this?
3- If there are figures (men, women, children, animals) in the advertisement, what are they like? What can be said about their facial expressions, poses, hairstyle, hair color, age, sex, ethnicity, education, occupation, relationships (of one to the other), and so on? What do these characteristics imply about the target audience?
4- What theme or themes do we find in the advertisement? What is the advertisement about? (The plot of an advertisement may involve a man and a woman drinking, but the theme might be jealousy, faithlessness, ambition, passion, etc.)
5- What sociological, political, economic, or cultural attitudes are indirectly reflected in the advertisement? An advertisement may be about a pair of blue jeans but it might, indirectly, reflect such matters as sexism, alienation, stereotyped thinking, conformism, generational conflict, loneliness, elitism, and so on.
6- What are your own thoughts about the advertisement?

1 - It's a sport drink. There are lots of sport drinks used in my community because people sometimes use them instead of water or soda.
2 - The general ambiance is funny. It's because the squirrel is doing something that a squirrel would never do in reality.
3 - There seems to be two men, though you can only hear the second one's voice. They seem to be having a joke. So, this could mean that this is supposed to be funny for the audience.
4 - Humor.
5 - Animal Cruelty, I guess.
6 - It was kind of funny but you see many advertisements of that type (something or someone doing something it or they wouldn't in reality).

It that good Rosey? Hope I helped!

-Just