Canada vs. Saudi Arabia: the art of advertising !
Hi everyone, I'm very pleased to present you a cross-cultural project we have made me and my team during the semester. It is based on the cultural differences between the Canadian and the Saudi Arabian cultures and above all to what extent these different patterns of norms, values... are influencing the way companies approach, develop, elaborate and adapt their ads to the specific societies. In this article I will introduce you the main points of my part of the whole project dealing first of all with the role, the importance and the manner to use sexuality in commercials functions of the culture, than with two ads-comparisons Toyota and Axe in Canada and Saudi-Arabia raising gender, sexual and relational issues. Here we go :)
Both extremes of sexuality can be seen when comparing North American culture with Saudi Arabian culture.
In Saudi Arabia, women are “the glue that holds the family together” and therefore, are not represented in a sexual manner. From restaurants to shopping malls, there are segregated areas for men only and others for families. There are religious police in place to make sure women are following the proper dress code of an abaya; however, a niqab is not required by law to be worn. Keeping in shape is an important aspect of life in Saudi Arabia as well, but there are separate gyms for men and for women. In women-only gyms, they are required by law to remove their veil for safety reasons – making sure no men try to sneak inside the facilities. Marriages tend to be arranged my family members, leaving dating among men and women non-existent. With all the reserved zones for families and groups of men, same-sex dating is becoming more common. Even though homosexuality is punishable by death, relationships among men and relationships among women are a lot easier to get away with.
Sex is an openly talked about topic in North American culture and therefore, it does not prevent the two sexes from interacting with one another. Right from going into daycare, boys and girls grow up in the presence of one another outside of the home. Dating is seen a big part of life, right from teenagers to older adults. Women’s bodies are portrayed very differently in this culture, compared with Saudi Arabian culture. Women are free to wear which ever articles of clothing pleases them, and they are also free to sit anywhere in restaurants. While no one can fight for which culture is ‘better’ because people are brought up differently, it is important to understand both cultures in order to prevent conflict from arising.
SEXUALITY IN ADVERTISING
Let’s face it; sex sells. With sex before marriage being taboo in Saudi Arabia,women cannot be used in a sexual manner in order for companies to sell their products or services. For ads that do feature women, the women must still abide by the proper dress code. This leaves companies the task of designing very creative marketing campaigns. Limits to sexuality in advertising do not stop there. In shopping malls, any mannequins with heads are illegal. Mannequins must not have heads in order to be used, and the religious police who stroll through the shopping malls keep their eyes open for anyone who might be breaking the law. With such strict laws, companies are forced to sell their products by promoting their ingredients and their usefulness – a task deemed to be very challenging when redesigning a North American ad to fit Saudi Arabian norms.
From perfume and watch ads straight to the Disney channel, women are used to sell products and attract consumers in North American culture. There is no socio-cultural problem with seeing near-naked women in so many advertisements in North America; this has become the norm. Women’s bodies are deemed to be attractive and appealing, thereby allowing companies to gain more consumers by using this strategy.
The Toyota Arabic advertisement is a good example to illustrate the differences between the North-American and Oriental culture. In fact, it will mainly deal with gender relations in Saudi Arabia: a thorny issue and a difficulty to overcome for the Japanese brand to sell their vehicles. Indeed, the Arabic society adheres to a patriarchal model which means that the woman’s position in this male-ruled system is to put her personal rights and ambitions behind her duties toward her family. This disparity between males and females in Saudi Arabia is all the more significant because of the women interdiction to vote (only for the local, the regional elections by 2015), to be elected to high political institutions and especially to drive a car, sail a boat or fly a plane. Therefore, in the Toyota commercial, we will only see the man driving the car while the women will carry through the domestic tasks for the family interest (in this ad the grocery shopping). Moreover we can observe that indeed women are not allowed to appear outdoors with hair wrists or ankles exposed and are wearing hijabs.
In the commercial we can see that all women are together with their respective children, they are not in presence of other men outside of the family. Besides the woman and the family in its entirety is very dependent from the man (the husband, the father or the elder in the family), that’s illustrate in the commercial by the fact that the woman has to be driven to do the grocery and the man has to come and get them back to their home. As a matter of course functions of the purchasing, the man has to buy the appropriate car for the situation; obviously Toyota has the perfect range of vehicles to fulfill all their expectations and desires. But this behavior is symbolic of a more underlying dependence for the woman: the economic dependence. In fact buying a new car is a serious buy which can be very expensive and in this commercial we can notice that the man is buying the new Toyota Sequoia without discussing the subject with his wife or taking care to her point of view. In fact, lots of western car advertisements are introducing a couple which is negotiating together whether or not they will buy the car and at which price. Furthermore this reality can be observe in other facts such as the under-representation of the women in the private work-force (only 5%) most of the times due to the fact that the husband may not authorize the woman to work alongside other men. Likewise women are not allowed to postpone marriages for the purpose of continuing education.
As a second step we will focus on another commercial dealing with Sexuality aspects. And for that what could be more relevant than using a brand which has based its products on the physical, the sexual attraction and its emphasizing to understand how sexuality is perceived in a specific country, in a specific culture. And we will see that Axe commercials can be very representational of how sexuality and the relation to the body are developed. Indeed as we can see promoting products in the western countries by using near nakedness or women with very little clothing is more than common (Beer commercials, as we will see shower gels, or shampoos…). There is no socio-cultural problem to sell products by using female bodies (as an object to conquer and to own): and it is not haphazardly if companies are using this process of sexual attraction to sell their products especially for shower gels (it is an exploit for Axe to stick this image of Casanova to the men which are using this type of shower gels although it is just a shampoo).
Let’s get to the heart of the matter, there is no denying that this advertising model using sexuality as an appealing and attractive strategy is most of the time a guarantee of success and especially in our western countries (North America is a good example.) But the fundamental question is why will all these commercials be met with success, is there a cultural issue under this phenomenon?
First of all, Axe’s answer to their commercials is that they’re using stereotypes to overemphasize the seduction, the desire. But it is not innocent if they’re always putting the sexuality or “the” conquest of the woman" as finality. Do not forget that the American culture is an individualistic culture where the individual uniqueness is highly rewarding. That is to say that some distinctions are made between individuals and in particular distinctions in terms of beauty following the aim of always being the best.
In fact these cultural aspects are transposed and used by the axe commercials where the notion of competition and rivalry is implicit. In fact if you want to be the more seductive you have to be a loyal consumer to Axe’s product: “Wash yourself with Axe if you really want to wash her”. Indeed if you’re not using Axe you will be disadvantaged and penalized compared to people who are using Axe products. Is that not intelligent?
Moreover the pernicious aspects in that process is that nowadays the seduction and the sexuality are not considered as taboo subjects anymore. (We can talk about the LGBT micro-culture although some stereotypes are still enduring). So the sexual performance (number of feminine conquests…) can be part of the competition to promote each one singularity to be the more efficient, the best as an individual (if it is what they are aspiring to of course).
Besides the Axe’s strategy to give the seduction predominance to the Axe products’ consumers is totally appropriateness to individualistic behavior traits to promote the high self-esteem (being THE Casanova), the self-satisfaction, the hedonist and achievement types of values ( following Schwartz’s motivational types of values). More easily, in a low context society, one of the primary goals is the happiness and Axe wants to assimilate this idea of being a “womanizer” to reach happiness: if we’re using shortcuts.
Nevertheless we have to keep in mind that in western cultures such as the Canadian, people are essentially rational, that’s why Axe can use subjective pictures of half naked women to stress, to emphasize and to give a concrete expression to their new objective and purpose (using subjectivity where Saudi Arabian will use implicit references or how to become master in the art of adapting their commercials in function of the cultures and the behaviors of a society).
Thereby we can best understand why all these commercials are very successful in the western societies and especially how they’re built to shape our cultural behaviors and expectations.