Between global and local: hybridized appeals in China web auto ads

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present the issue of glocalization in transnational advertising and to investigate various patterns of global‐local fusion in the discursive construction of automobile advertisements in People's Republic of China.

Design/methodology/approach

A sample of 110 web ads is collected between 2004 and 2005, representing product branding from the local enterprises, the joint‐venture enterprises, and the foreign enterprises in the automobile industry in People's Republic of China. A tripartite framework is developed to examine the patterns of global‐local fusion in the ads along three dimensions: value appeals, language appeals, and visual appeals.

Findings

The paper finds that the global appeals tend to be used more frequently in the value dimension while the local appeals tend to be used more frequently in the language dimension, while there is not much difference in the frequency of distribution in the global versus the local appeals in the visual dimension. Furthermore, a large number of the multinational advertisers tend to hybridize both the global and the local elements and there are three possible patterns as representing the scenarios of the global and local fusion in the discourse of Chinese advertising: weak globalization but strong localization, strong globalization but weak localization, and a balanced correspondence between the global and local elements.

Originality/value

The paper has developed a tripartite framework for systematically examining the phenomenon of global‐local hybridity in the discourse of Chinese advertising and calls for attention to the process as well as products of glocalization in the other forms of transnational corporate practice.

Citation

Wu, D.D. (2008), "Between global and local: hybridized appeals in China web auto ads", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 68-79. https://doi.org/10.1108/13563280810848201