Comparison

Similarities:                  

The campaigns share similarities even though one would not expect so at first. Both products have the same target group and goal. The target groups are young women and the goal of the product is to care for the skin and to give the consumer confidence. The commercials in both countries use a mixture of a hard and soft sell approach, meaning they use information as well as emotions to appeal to the consumers. However the Austrian commercial uses more of a hard sell approach, due to Austria being a low context culture, while the commercial from Indonesia uses more of a soft sell approach due to Indonesia being a high context culture.

Differences:

The first difference of these two product campaigns is also the most obvious one: the products. Both products are very specific to their culture. You can’t find a whitening cream on the Austrian website and you couldn’t buy or sell the tanning oil in Indonesia. This is due to the different beauty standards in those countries and cultures. In Indonesia the beauty standard is to have light/white skin, white skin is seen as a status symbol, it means that you don’t have to work outside (on rice fields, etc.) and therefore don’t have a tan. The opposite is true for Austria; here a tan is a status symbol because it means that the person has enough money to have leisure time and spend time in the sun or on vacation to sunny countries.

But differences can also be seen in the commercials. These differences can be explained by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and therefore the differences in the two cultures. The first difference in the commercial is that in Austria the main focus of the commercial is one woman, the only thing that is important to her is to look good and be envied by others. In the Indonesian commercial however, the focus is not just one the beauty of the woman, but also on her social situation and the acceptance by her surroundings. This difference can be explained by the different Individualism scores. The Masculinity scores also explain differences in the two commercials. The Indonesian concept of “Gengsi” (outwards appearance) is clearly taken into consideration; the protagonist of the commercial wants to be admired by others. At the same time, the competitive culture of Austria is also depicted in their commercial; the protagonist is envied by other women. Another cultural dimension that had an influence on the commercials is Indulgence. In these examples indulgence has an influence on the setting of the commercials. The one for Indonesia, a culture of restraint, has a social/business setting, the woman needs to look good for an event and not just for fun. This is in contrast to the Austrian commercial, Austria has a culture of indulgence, and therefore the setting is a beach, a symbol for leisure time.