2. Literature Review

     Mueller finds that cultural values are embedded in advertising appeals, which are the specific approaches advertisers use to convey how their products will satisfy customer needs. 

     Chinese scholars, like Huang Lu, whose data analysis studies cross-cultural communication strategies of foreign brand auto advertising. She stresses the localization of western advertising in China from several aspects. 

   3. Differences Between Chinese and Western Culture Orientation in Automobile Advertising 

3.1 Inpidualism vs. Collectivism

     When it comes to cultural values in different districts, the most important dimension is inpidualism vs collectivism. Inpidualism orientation encourages personal decision-making and emphasizes inpidual behaviors, self-fulfillment; while collectivism views the inpidual as a part of a group and underlines correlative dependence, pays attention to the group goal, friendship and stresses the concept of “us” not “me”.

     Images appeared in domestic automobile advertisements are usually sweet scenes that all family members drive their car to have a family journey or the lovers enjoy their trip in a car, or close friends go for their expedition by their car. Most of them present the relationship among the group life. On the contrary, in the western advertisements, there are more scenes of a man driving alone which expresses personal heroism. For example, the advertisement The Race with God of Mercedes-Benz, the leading man drives as fast as a flash in a vast desert and wins the competition in the end. What’s more, the advertisement Hostile Takedown of BMW also shows the same spirit. There are several reasons account for the differences, different backgrounds, languages and ideology. Chinese pay more attention to the sense of group and family while westerners emphasize freedom and an inpidual adventure. Chinese tend to rely on each other, cooperate with each other and care much about the international relationship.

3.2 Power Orientation源`自,吹冰`.论"文'网[www.chuibin.com

     Power orientation refers to the degree of acceptance and recognition of social power differences. Advertising appeals of power distance emphasize tradition and authority and pay attention to social class. (Luo Xiaoyan, 2007: 286）

     Compared with western culture, Chinese culture respects the history and the elder, stresses tradition and the past, attaches importance to ancestral wisdom and experience, identity and class. Due to thousands of years of Chinese tradition, China has not developed professional association and evaluation system. The quality of commodities in ancient times is often checked by the emperor and celebrities’ evaluation while commodities today are appraised through government authorities. There are so many compliments such as the level of diamond, the flagship model, world-class quality and a lot of titles such as CEO and VIP in auto advertising copies. For instance, the propagation of the 2nd generation of Chang’an is the model of minicars, trustworthy. The advertising copy of Transit Express Car reads that we are the wisest choice of global top 500 enterprises, we lead the sales of Chinese high-end light passenger for two years in a row and we are awarded Chinese annual commercial vehicles by national mainstream media alliance in both 2005 and 2006. The message in the advertising of Dongfeng NISSAN is that three-month consecutive sales of TEANA outdistances the sum sales of two brand cars and is ahead of other top luxury cars. What’s more, the dignity of the world of Suzhou Higer, KIA, the worldwide leader in the automotive manufacturing industry etc. all show the worship to the state and the authority which is rarely used in foreign auto advertising.