Abstract

This study compares U.S. and Korean Web advertising with respect to the methodology of information cues, creative strategies, and the level of technology. According to this comparison, Korean Web ads are less informative than U.S. Web ads. However, it is found that the two countries are similar to each other in the use of creative strategy and technology. This overall study illustrates that the Internet is a global medium that goes beyond the borders of country/culture, delivering information to potential consumers worldwide.

Technology and the globalization of economies have brought the world closer and have turned it into one large marketplace. Advertisers and marketers sell products to consumers in different cultures and languages. To be successful in the international market, they need to communicate effectively with those target consumers. Therefore, much emphasis has been put on the importance of intercultural communication. Although the appropriate method to approach local markets has been debated for a while, many past research studies (Dowling, 1980; Madden et al., 1986; Weinberger and Spotts, 1989; Keown et al., 1992; Muller, 1987; Culter and Javalgi, 1992; Zandpour et al., 1992) have suggested to marketers and advertisers that they need different approaches for different countries.

As a global medium that expands beyond the boundaries of different countries and different cultures, communication through the Internet reaches people across cultures. The Internet is one of the fastest-growing media, reaching every part of the world, and as of August 1998, has total estimated users of 134 million worldwide (NUA, 1998 at URL: http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/). The Internet has several distinguishing characteristics such as interactivity, irrelevance of distance and time, low set-up costs, global coverage, and ease of entry (Berthon et al., 1996). The Internet reaches any person at any place at any time through technology, and it has made it possible for people from all over the world to communicate with one another easily. With these characteristics, the Internet has become one of the most powerful media in the world. The Internet has also emerged as an important marketing and advertising tool, generating $906 million online in 1997 (IAB 1998, at URL: http://www.iab.net/). More and more companies, who have realized the benefits the Internet can offer, are increasing their ad budgets for online marketing.

The Internet is believed to be one of few media to cross cultural barriers. Although there are many intercultural studies on traditional media advertising, only a few studies on Web advertising have been done. There are fewer studies proving the cultural influences on Web advertising.

This study investigates the differences in cultural influences on Web advertising between Korea and the U.S., based on content analysis. According to Porter and Samovar’s (1982) scale of social-cultural differences, Western and Asian cultures show maximum difference. Therefore, Web advertising in the U.S., representing Western culture, and Korea, representing Eastern culture, were examined to see the cultural differences more clearly. Also, the cultural differences existing between the two countries are expected to influence Web advertising. Specifically, this study will examine 1) the information content, 2) creative strategies, and 3) technology level employed in Korean and American Web advertising.

The U.S. and Korea are culturally different in many ways. These countries are different in their economic and political situations, and in technological development. Particularly, while the Internet was born and developed in the U.S., the Internet use in Korea has only recently started booming. Also, the market situations and the budgets for advertising are different between the two countries.

Korea has a relatively short Internet history, compared with the U.S. The Internet was born as APRANET in the late 1960s in the U.S. and opened to the public in 1992. However, the setting-up of the Internet in Korea started in 1982 and it became a public medium in 1994. In both countries, the Internet is experiencing exponential growth in the number of networks, number of hosts, and volume of traffic (Stern, 1995).

The demographics of Internet users in the two countries reflect the history of the Internet (Table 1). In other words, Korean users have a profile parallel to that of American users at the beginning of the Internet boom. The number of users in the U.S. is 54.68 million (54.7 percent of total Internet users) and that in Korea is 1 million. The Internet in the U.S. has become so popular a medium that 30 percent of the total U.S. population are using it (NUA, 1998). According to GVU’s recent 8^th Internet survey results (GVU’s WWW Surveying Team, 1998), the gender ratio is moving closer to par between male (59.5 percent) and female users (40.5 percent). The average age of users is 35.7 years old, and it continues to increase. Most of the U.S. users (84.6 percent) are college students and graduate students or graduates of colleges or graduate schools.

However, the Internet is still a male-dominated medium in Korea. According to a survey conducted by the KRNIC (Korean Internet Information Center) and the Taegu University Computer New Technology Research Center in 1997, 84.8 percent of Internet users in Korea are male and 15.2 percent are female (KRNIC, 1997). The age of users in Korea is much lower than that of U.S. users. Use for business, entertainment and shopping is very limited. The majority of the users are novices in their first year on the Internet, compared with U.S. users. Compared with the education of users in the U.S., more Korean high school students and high school graduates use the Internet.

The advertising market situation and size of the two countries also show great differences. The health of the economy and the well-being of the advertising industry are closely related (Gremillion, 1997). The U.S. economy has been expanding since 1991 and this has been a profitable period for the advertising industry as well. The globalization of U.S. companies and the ever-developing technology cooperated with a good economy to give the advertising industry more chance to expand itself. Total ad spending increased 8.8 percent from 1996 to 1997 (Table 2). Among all media, Web advertising has shown great increases every quarter of each year. According to the report published by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB, 1997), Internet ad spending reached $343.9 million for the first half of 1997, which is a 322 percent increase from the first half of 1996 and exceeds the 1996 year total of $267 million (Table 3). Although the ad spending on the Internet accounted for only one percent of the total ad spending, it is increasing quickly.

Although it has a very small market, compared with the U.S., in the size of its advertising industry and in the variety of media, Korea was one of the fastest-growing countries in Asia, with much potential, along with Japan. However, with the economic crises that Korea is confronted with, the total ad spending decreased from $5.6 billion to $5.3 billion in 1997. In spite of reduced total ad spending, online ad spending was increased by 1.7 times from $13 million in 1996 to $38 million in 1997 (Table 4). Among the total online ad spending, Internet ad spending was increased from $3 million to $7 million (Joongang Ilbo, 1998). The increase in ad spending on the Internet indicates that advertisers started looking for an efficient and low-cost medium. For small companies, which can not afford traditional media, the Internet can be a very affordable medium.

As a form of social communication, advertising is considered to be particularly reflective of culture (Hong et al., 1987). A consumer who is exposed to a specific culture becomes committed to that culture’s style of thinking and feeling, value system, attitudes and perceptions (Hallowell, 1972). The fact that advertising is influenced by culture and reflects culture has prompted many researchers to have an interest in cross-cultural studies of advertising.

There are two approaches to cross-cultural studies. Researchers and marketers have long debated the issue of standardization vs. localization of advertising. Standardization came from the view that people around the world share the same basic needs and values. The proponents of standardization believe that the same product can be advertised everywhere with the same or a similar message and appeal (Mueller, 1987). They suggest that the standardization approach has benefits in terms of reduced costs, increased control over ad content, stronger brand images, and simplified strategic planning (Cutler et al., 1992). The opponents of standardization argue that standardization of advertising is inappropriate because of cultural and national differences among countries. They suggest that cultural differences should influence advertising practices and that advertising should be designed to fit local markets. Many studies on intercultural advertising have been done to identify cultural differences in advertising. Although the standardization -vs.- localization issue of advertising is still debated, the results of many cross-cultural studies have demonstrated that there are varying degrees of cultural differences across cultures.

After Resnik and Stern (1977) first started systematic investigation of information content by setting up the evaluative criteria for informativeness in advertising, analysis of the information content of advertising has been used in many cross-cultural studies to determine differences in information in advertising across different cultures. These studies show that different countries with different cultures have varying degrees of information in their advertisements (Dowling, 1980; Madden et al., 1986; Weinberger and Spotts, 1989; Keown et al., 1992). Creative strategies employed in ads from different countries have been investigated to determine cultural reflection in advertising appeal. Many studies have demonstrated that creative strategy varies across countries (Mueller, 1987; Ramaprasad and Hawegawa, 1992; Cutler and Javalgi, 1992). There are also some studies which investigate both content of advertising information and creative strategy (Martenson, 1987; Zandpour et al., 1992; Zandpour et al., 1994). As indicated, many studies have demonstrated cultural differences in advertising using traditional media.

Since HotWired launched its first Internet banner advertising in October 1994, Web advertising has expanded enormously (Williamson, 1996). As Web advertising grows rapidly, many measurement and research companies have emerged. Many marketers set up the budget for Web advertising alongside that for other traditional media such as TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. However, cross-cultural studies on Web advertising have not gained much attention yet. Therefore, this study will examine the cultural impact on Web advertising between Korea and the U.S. and will generate various hypotheses accordingly.

Informativeness is related to the quantity of information included in ads. Difference in the quantity of information is expected between American and Korean ads, because the U.S. belongs to a low-context culture and Korea belongs to a high-context culture. According to the high- vs. low-context theory (Wells et al., 1995), the expression of message, especially the informativeness of the message, varies in different cultures. Many previous research studies have shown that Korean advertising is less informative than U.S. advertising (Keown et al., 1992). It is believed that this will be true for Web advertising as well.

As many studies have proved cultural differences in advertising, cultural differences are expected in the creative strategies employed in American and Korean ads. Among many classification systems, Simon’s system is believed to be the most comprehensive one, differentiating 10 different creative strategies. Among these 10 creative strategies, those using logical, explicit and specific messages such as information and argument strategies are assumed to appear more in American ads. However, creative strategies using symbolic meaning, subtle and indirect expression such as motivation with psychological appeal, brand familiarization, and symbolic association are expected more from Korean ads. From this expectation, the following hypothesis is generated:

Simon (1971) also classified creative strategies as subliminal-oriented strategy and conscious-oriented strategy. Subliminal-oriented strategy appeals to the unconscious portion of the mind in an attempt to implant the message without exposing the selling idea. In contrast, conscious-oriented strategy appeals to the conscious and reasoning portion of the mind, attempting to deliver explicitly the message of the selling idea. In Korean culture, delivering the intention of a message-sender and factual information in a communication are often avoided (Han, 1988). However, communication in American culture is based on facts, and the point of the message is directly delivered in many cases (Wells et al., 1995). This rationale generates the following hypotheses:

In terms of the years of use, the number of users, online ad spending in the two countries, etc., the Internet is a relatively newer and less developed medium in Korea than in the U.S. The overall technology level is expected to be more developed in the U.S. than in Korea. Since Java, Shockwave and animated images are most commonly used technologies in the Internet, those three applications are believed to be found more in American ads. Therefore, it is expected that Korean Web advertising has a lower technology level than U.S. Web advertising does.

In this study, target ads were used as units of analysis among three different forms of Web advertising ?banner ads, target ads, and advertiser-supported sites ?because the target ads are one of two currently dominant forms of Web advertising (i.e., banner ads and target ads) (Hoffman et al., 1995). The reason for not using banner ads as units of analysis is that banner ads usually have limited amounts of information, i.e., the main purpose of banner ads is to catch consumers?attention to have them click the banner ads. Another reason for choosing target ads is to clarify the comparison of ads in traditional media and on the Internet, i.e., target ads are believed to have more interactivity by providing consumers more control over communication than traditional advertising.

A content analysis was conducted on a sample of 100 target ads, 50 American sites and 50 Korean sites collected from December 1997 to February 1998. Among the top 100 national brands, the first 50 brands that have Web sites were chosen. Data about the top 100 national brands were attained from Ad Age (1997) for the American ad samples and ADInformation (1998) for the Korean samples.

For the comparison of advertising informativeness between the U.S. and Korea, Resnik and Stern’s (1977) information classification system (Table 5), which is frequently employed as an advertising informativeness measure, was used. The creative strategies were coded using Simon’s (1971) classification system (Table 6), which has been employed in many intercultural studies. Each of the ten creative strategies in Simon’s classification system was tested separately. Conscious-oriented creative strategy was coded by the combined frequencies of the information, argument and motivation-with- psychological-appeal strategies. Subliminal-oriented strategy was measured by the combined frequencies of the command, symbolic association and imitation strategies (Table 7). The technology level was measured by the frequency of the appearance of three technology criteria--Java, Shockwave, and animated images (Table 8). The overall technology level was tested by the combined frequencies of the three criteria. Each criterion was tested individually to compare the specific differences in technology level between the two countries.

Each target ad was evaluated by two judges. To check the intercoder reliability, two coders independently analyzed 10 Korean ads and 10 U.S. ads. The agreement between the two coders?ratings of the ads was calculated to check whether it was within the acceptable rage of reliability (r < .80).

For intercoder reliability, a commonly used measure of reliability—the proportion of coding agreements to the total number of coding decisions—was employed in this study. The coder reliability of each coding category was overall satisfactory, ranging from .79 to .98 (i.e., .83 for information cues, .79 for creative strategies, .98 for use of technology).

Table 9 shows the average number of information cues per ad. American Web ads (Mean = 1.8) are more informative than Korean counterparts (Mean = 0.8). Table 10 compares the number of ads containing a specified number of information cues between the two countries. The number of information cues contained in each ad ranged from none to five. In a total of 100 ads, 65 ads (65 %) satisfied at least one information cue. 41 (82 %) ads in the U.S. had at least one information cue. In contrast, more than half of the Korean ads (52 %) did not satisfy any information cue. As the criterion of informativeness increased to two cues, 52 percent of American ads satisfied two cues or more, and 24 percent of Korean ads satisfied. As information cues increased to more than three, more American ads satisfied informativeness than Korean ads. In conclusion, there is a significant difference between the two countries in the number of information cues (p £ .05). Therefore, H1 overall is supported?quot;Korean Web ads are less informative than U.S. Web ads."

Table 11 shows the frequency of appearance of the 14 information cues by ranking order. A total of 90 informational cues were communicated in the 50 American advertisements, while 39 cues were used in the 50 Korean advertisements. Availability (21.1 %), special offer (21.1 %), and package/shape (21.1 %) were the most frequently used information cues in American samples, followed by quality (12.0 %) and price value (6.0 %). In contrast to American ads, quality (25.6 %) was the information cue that was most often used in Korean ads, followed by package/shape (23.1 %), special offer (17.9 %), performance (15.4 %), and price-value (2.0 %).

Although the frequency of each information cue is different, there is a similar pattern in the ranking order. Both countries included special offer, package or shape, quality, and price-value in the five most frequently used cues. Although availability is one of the most often used information cues in the U.S., it appeared in only one ad in Korea. Taste, nutrition, and new ideas were ranked low in both countries.

Table 12 displays the frequency of occurrence of the ten creative strategies in the two sets of samples. The most frequently occurring creative strategy in both countries was information, followed by motivation with psychological appeal. In American ads, information strategy was used in 44 percent of the total American samples, and motivation-with-psychological-appeal strategy was used in 32 percent. In Korean ads, information occurred in 42 percent, and motivation with psychological appeal occurred in 30 percent of the total Korean ads. The least used creative strategies were also similar between the two countries. Repeated assertion and imitation strategies were the least used creative strategies in the two countries.

According to the chi-square values shown in Table 12, there is no significant difference in creative strategies employed in American and Korean ads. Each creative strategy employed in the ads shows a similar pattern in the two countries except command. 15 ads out of 50 used command in the U.S., while only 2 ads used it in Korea. Therefore, H2 overall is not supported, i.e., it is found that the creative strategies of the two countries are similar to each other.

Table 13 displays the frequencies of the conscious- and subliminal-oriented categories by the two countries. Sixty-eight percent of Korean ads were conscious-oriented, while 58 percent of American ads were conscious-oriented. However, the result was not statistically significant (p £ .05). Unexpectedly, U.S. Web ads use more subliminal-oriented creative strategies than Korean Web ads (20%) (p £ .05).

As shown in Table 14, more Korean ads satisfied the technology criteria –Java, Shockwave, and animated images ?than did American ads. 86 percent of Korean ads had at least one technology criterion while 72 percent of American ads satisfied one technology criterion. However, the result was not significant (p £ .05).

For the number of technology criteria, the two countries are very similar to each other. As shown in Table 15, 64% of Korean ads satisfied one criterion while 70% of U.S. Web ads satisfied the criterion. In addition, the two countries were similar to each other in the use of two or more technology criteria (34% for U.S. and 30% for Korean Web ads).

In the proportion of the ads using Java to the total ads, the U.S. and Korea were the same. As shown in Table 16, ads that used Java were 24 among 50 ads in the two countries. That is, no difference was found in the use of Java in the two countries. There were only three ads (3 %) which used Shockwave in the total sample of ads. In addition, the use of animated images was similar between the two countries. Therefore, we can say that there is no significant difference in the use of Java, Shockwave and animated images between the two countries. In conclusion, H3.3 overall is not supported, i.e., it is unexpectedly found that Korean Web ads have a technological level similar to that of U.S. Web ads.

The objective of this study was to examine cultural differences in information content, creative strategy and technology level employed in Web advertising between Korea and the U.S. It was expected that Web advertising would be different across cultures, as was observed in many studies on traditional media. As shown in the study findings, there was a difference in informativeness between Korean and American Internet ads. However, Web advertising was not different in other aspects (i.e., creative strategy and technological level).

Many studies on the information content of advertising from different cultures found that informativeness and emphasis on specific information content are different across cultures in traditional media. This study revealed that there was a difference in the information content in Web advertising as well. The reason for the informativeness difference can be interpreted that Korean advertisers do not consider the Internet a business tool, but only a PR tool. Since the Internet was introduced to Korea later than to the U.S., and the use of the Internet and online marketing are not widespread, compared with the U.S., Korean advertisers use the ads to compete with their competitors and to give the image of being technologically updated. Also, the concept of online marketing has not been established in marketers?minds. Just presenting the company’s site has been the main concern to Korean advertisers; i.e., "we also have our own Web site." It has not been necessary for them to give consumers specific information about their products.

Other results are contrary to Mueller (1987)’s and Zandpour et al. (1994)’s studies, showing no cultural influences in creative strategies. In addition, there was no difference in the technology levels employed in the two countries. It is interpreted that American ads and Korean ads are not different in technology levels, because technological factors can be most easily adapted and changed quickly.

This study overall suggests that the Internet is a global medium through which communication with people all over the world is possible, i.e., the Internet crosses different cultures and languages. Therefore, marketers and advertisers should recognize the benefits that the Internet can give and make full use of this medium.

Several suggestions will help extend future research on Web advertising. First, appropriate criteria that can measure Web advertising are needed. Web advertising is different in format, characteristics, and audience from traditional media. So far, not many studies have been done on Web advertising. In order to extend and explore more fully, new measures that fit the medium are necessary in Web advertising research. Second, it is suggested that an experimental study is needed to measure the attitude of the audience and the effectiveness of Web advertising across cultures. Since Web advertising targets people across the world, it would be valuable to study the attitudes of people in different cultures and the effectiveness of the advertising messages received by the people in different countries and using different languages.

Source: Competitive Media Source (1997), "Measure Media Totals Jan-Jun 1997," Advertising Age, [http://ads.adage.com/search97cgi/s97_cgi].

Source: IAB (1997), "Internet Advertising Bureau Announces Second Quarter Advertising Revenue Reporting Program Results," October 7, [http://www.oab.net/news/content/new%20/q2.html]

Source: Song, Eun-Ha (1998), "Ending the Era of Rapid Growth, Preparing Reconstruction of the Advertising Industry," AD Information, 204 (March), 38-41.

Resnik and Stern (1971), "An Analysis of Information Content in Television Advertising," Journal of Marketing, (January), 50-53.

Simon, Julian L.(1971), The Management of Advertising, Englewood Cliff, New Jersey, 174-183.

p £ .05

p £ .05

d.f.=2, p £ .05

Chi-Square = 2.95, d.f. = 1, p £ .05

Chi-Square = 1.01, d.f.=2, P £ .05

p £ .05