Author:

Keywords:

cultural difference, advertising, youth, ethnic minorities

Abstract:

With the increasing ethnic-cultural diversity in Flanders, particularly among youth, this study examines the role of culture in advertising beliefs and attitudes among majority and minority youth in Flanders. Although these youngsters have become an important target group since the emergence of youth marketing strategies, little is known about their advertising perceptions, particularly research taking ethnic-cultural differences among young consumers into account is scarce. Therefore this study draws on various theoretical perspectives, mainly from intercultural communication, social psychology and previous advertising research, as well as a combination of research methods to gain more insight in cultural differences and similarities in advertising perceptions.By means of a quantitative survey among 1,140 youngsters between 12 and 19 years old, both differences and similarities between youngsters with Flemish, Turkish, Moroccan, other western or other non-western origins are mapped and related to their advertising beliefs and attitudes. These results have been tested and complemented with 50 interviews with majority and minority youth.The results show that all youngsters take a rather neutral attitude towards advertising in general. This is mainly explained by ambiguous feelings and opinions that shape the general advertising attitude. Although youngsters, for instance, acknowledge the misleading character of advertising, they still consider advertising as a valuable source of information. This study has focused on five advertising aspects that explain ambivalence in advertising attitudes: the information, the hedonic and social functions of advertising attribute to a more positive advertising attitude, whereas the misleading and materialistic functions of advertising lead to negative advertising attitudes. Turkish and Moroccan youngsters tend to hold more positive advertising attitudes than Flemish youngsters, because youngsters with Turkish and Moroccan backgrounds are more often inclined to ascribe a social function to advertising, whereas their Flemish peers consider advertising more often as deceptive.In order to assess whether these differences in advertising beliefs are culturally bound, the cultural values and self construals - as part of the theoretical distinction between individualistic and collectivistic cultures - are measured and compared according to the ethnic-cultural backgrounds of youngsters. The results point out similarities as well as differences between ethnic majority and minority youngsters. All youngsters strongly value social relationships, friendships and the well-being of others (self-transcendence), while achievement and power are considered less important and both majority youngsters and ethnic minority youngsters with a higher degree of integration are open to change. The latter finding indicates the relevance of acculturation processes in the value patterns among culturally diverse groups. A similar tendency is noted for the self concepts of youth, where ethnic minority youngsters combine both independent and interdependent self construals by using both personal traits (individual needs, preferences and skills) and their social position in society (status and relationships) to construct their identities. Despite all similarities, several ethnic-cultural differences confirm previous research in cross-cultural communication (cfr. Gudkunst e.a., 1996): on the one hand stimulation, self-direction and particularly hedonism are valued higher by western youth than by non-western youth, while on the other hand conservative values like tradition and conformism are more important for non-western youngsters than for youngsters with western origins. Further analysis points out that not so much ethnic-cultural backgrounds but cultural values and self construals predict advertising beliefs and attitudes. A cultural typology of ‘socially-oriented conservatives’, ‘dynamic self-developers’ and ‘cultural in-betweens’ shows variations in consumption, media- and advertising preferences and underlines the relevance of lifestyle research which includes multiple ethic-cultural identities and aspirations of youth.