National stereotype and Germanic, Eastern Cluster

National stereotype in Ads

During the tenth class of Intercultural management, the professor Heiko Schmidt talked about national stereotyping in ads. In addition, we had the presentation of the Germanic and Eastern Cluster. Firstly, I want to talk about how national stereotypes in ads influence the perception of a country in other countries eyes. Secondly, I will give a small introduction about the Germanic and Eastern cluster. Finally, I will give the response to my question, how do ads influence us?

“Stereotypes are harmless jokes based on the identity that a certain nation or people has established or projected towards other countries through the years” (National Stereotypes , 2014)

According with the stated above, we can think many examples that comes up to our mind such as:

1          1- Swiss love clocks.

2- Germans are unfriendly.

3- Caribbean people is always dancing.

4- The French have poor hygiene.

5- Colombians are drug dealers.

6- The United States is liberal

Some of them are offensive and could affected the relation with people of those countries. Even though, national stereotypes are based on historical situations we cannot generalized arguing that what we learnt from television, internet, comments, and opinions and so on. Something that I found interesting about national stereotypes is that many of them are not true for example, “the United States is liberal”. When talking about this premise we found many inconsistencies with reality, gay marriage for example is not legalized in all the country, in addition, the use of marihuana which in European countries such as Holland is completely legal in the United States has been just approved by certain states making their position a little more conservative than liberal.

Another example is “French have poor hygiene”. In Colombia, we do think that French people do not take showers regularly some of my friends argue that is because water is too expensive or because they have such a large perfume industry that is not necessary to expend water when you can buy perfumes at a low price. I have never been in France so I am giving my perception of what I heard and know about France.

Germanic Cluster

The Germanic cluster is composed by Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and other territories that have Germanic languages. Those countries share similarities such as language and that they were part of what we know the Holy Roman Empire.  In comparison with other cluster, I would say that the Germanic cluster is one of the most compact of the entire cluster classification. I mean with compact, that we can find German customs and languages in a territory more than 450.000 km2. Finally, the cluster of countries scored high in performance orientation, assertiveness, and future orientation and low in humane orientation and both forms of collectivism (Ortony, 2014).

Metaphors: Windmills and watermills

Windmills and Watermills are part of Dutch landscape and form part of Dutch identity. The Netherlands is located in a zone easily flooded by the power of the sea. That is why Dutch people decided to build windmills and watermills to protect the land from the sea.  We can say that windmills and watermill have evolved within the Netherlands.  

Eastern Cluster

Greece, Hungary, Albania, Slovenia, Poland, Russia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan compose the Eastern Cluster. In my personal opinion, the countries of the Eastern Cluster are one of the most received influenced from a single country Russia. Almost all of them were part of the URSS unless Greece and have uncommon that share Russian values and part of the population speaks Russian or have Russians ascendants. These countries scored high on in-group collectivism, assertiveness, and gender egalitarianism. They scored low on performance orientation, future orientation, and uncertainty avoidance/acceptance of risk (Ortony, 2014).

How do ads and mass media influence us?

The massive media industries worth millions dollars every year and is capable of influence our opinions and decisions. It is known that companies’ use persuasive advertising messages to influence the buying decisions through newspaper, magazines ads, saw and heard television, radio and websites (Curtis, 2012).

Lately, advertising companies are using senses to approach to clients and influence the buying decisions. One of the best examples is Dunkin Donuts in South Korea; Dunkin Donuts is using their jingle to release the aroma of coffee along with radio advertisements in buses in Seoul. This incentives people to look for a Dunkin Donuts shop to buy coffee right away they get off the bus.

By the other hand, we have the mass media corporations that influence mainly our opinions and perceptions. For example, the main news lately comes from the Middle East and the IS (Islamic State) when watching broadcasting corporations such as BBC, NBC, Fox, ABC, CNN and others. The main topic is the expansion of IS in Middle East, their executions and the destruction of human heritage. Changing the perception of what people thinks about the region and generalizing the actions of IS to countries that has not even been touched by the IS.

Conclusion  

·          1-   Ads and mass media plays an important role when transmitting a message.
·   The beliefs we harbour and the decisions we make are based on our assumptions, our experiences, our education and what we know for a fact.    
·     We rely on mass media for the current news and facts about what is important and what we should be aware of.   

Bibliography

Curtis, A. (2012). University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Obtenido de http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/Courses/ResourcesForCourses/Media&Society/MassMediaInfluenceOnSociety.html

National Stereotypes . (2014). National Stereotypes. Obtenido de http://www.nationalstereotype.com/you-are-not-your-country-top-10-national-stereotypes/

Ortony, A. (2014). Segapub . Obtenido de http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/30903_Chapter1.pdf