International Advertising

A Cross-Cultural Study of Advertising Through Fashion Bloggers: The United States vs Brazil

Kellie Ruccolo

Communication 480

University of Massachusetts Boston

Abstract

Instagram is becoming a popular platform for companies to advertise on. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of paid advertisements posted on fashion bloggers’ Instagrams in terms of the content of the post and the amount of likes the photos receive. This study compares two very different cultures—the United States and Brazil. The content of both the photo and the caption is analyzed by six coders—two native English speakers, two native Portuguese speakers, and two bilingual speakers. The posts are from popular fashion bloggers in both cultures and are coded into different categories for both the caption and the images. The captions are coded for their collectivistic or individualistic values, their high context or low context values, and their implicit/indirect or explicit/direct messages. The images are coded for their high or low visual representation and explicit/direct or implicit/indirect messages. It is hypothesized that American fashion bloggers will employ more individualistic values, more explicit ads, more direct forms of messages, and less visual representations than Brazilian fashion bloggers. This research is important because companies are looking for new and innovative ways to advertise, and as social media becomes more engrained in our everyday life, people are constantly on their networking sites. It is important for these companies to know how to maximize their sales and their spending on this type of advertising.

Introduction

Companies are just starting to look to Instagram and other social media platforms to advertise. Traditionally, advertisements are seen as commercials on television, as large posters on a billboard, or one-page spreads in magazines. Now, advertisements are making their way to social media as posts from our favorite celebrities and even lesser-known fashion bloggers.

A fashion blogger is a person who is just like anyone else—they are not famous celebrities. They share outfit, lifestyle, and makeup advice for their followers. Recently, companies have been reaching out to these bloggers and paying them to post advertisements for their products, whether it be a brand of makeup, a line of watches, or a particular app. These advertisements are effective because we trust these people to sell us good products because they’re just regular people like us.

This study aims to identify which advertisements work best. Through an analysis of different cultural values, such as individualism and collectivism, high context and low context, and explicit and implicit messages, the posts will be coded into different categories outlining these values. This is important for the future of this industry, as companies will want to know which posts are worth paying for.

Literature Review

Fashion bloggers have recently been converted be named “digital influencers,” according to Forbes (Etyan, 2016). They are coined as such because they influence their followers to purchase, do, or wear the things that they do. They show the world their fabulous lives, and they make people want to be like them. In the article “Are Fashion Bloggers Able to Convert Followers into Buyers?” the author examines the trend of high fashion hiring models based solely on their Instagram follow count. This is a new trend that started with the rise of social media—previously models were hired based solely on looks, but now they are being hired because of the amount of people they have who are interested in their life or want to be like them. They are “it” girls before they even have “it.” This trend has carried over into paid advertisements. Fashion bloggers are making a living off of making one or two sponsored posts a week.

Each advertisement appears as a native advertisement, meaning that they appear like any other post. There is nothing really overt that screams advertisement because they assimilate with the other, non-sponsored posts. In “A Double-Edged Sword? Predicting Consumers’ Attitudes Toward and Sharing Intention of Native Advertising on Social Media,” the effectiveness of native advertising is discussed. While the general consensus was that ads are better suited for websites on which people would expect to see them, such as Yelp, but the advertisements that they focused on were intentional, company-posted advertisements (Lee, Kim, & Ham, 2016). The posts by fashion bloggers are not perceived as posted by the company itself, and therefore would prove to be more effective. Native advertising is also a double-edged sword because some consumers might miss the fact that these are advertisements and scroll past the post as if it were any other picture.

Companies are also learning to use the Instagram algorithm to their advantage. The algorithm makes posts appear in the order that the user is likely to interact with them. This means that the first post the user sees will be one by someone whose pictures they always like or comment on. The last post will be one by someone who the user never interacts with. According to Instagram, this optimizes the amount of interaction a user has on the website. This can either be an advantage or disadvantage to the company who is paying a fashion blogger depending on how much engagement these bloggers get. Followers are not necessarily a direct indicator of this fact, and that’s why in “Brands and Instagram: Point, tap, swipe, glance,” the authors discuss how companies can use this algorithm to their advantage (Carah, & Shaul, 2015). Even on the discover page, the algorithm is at work. Users are shown people and pictures they are likely to interact with based on who they already follow and who they have looked at in the past. Companies can use this to their advantage to target specific people—if it’s a makeup brand made for teens and twenty-year-olds, then they can make sure the post they’re paying for includes things their target audience would enjoy. Hashtags and specific images are a great way to do this. The example from this article is gender norms, and once the algorithm learns that this is something associated with the brand, they are likely to reproduce it so people who adhere to these norms will see the post (Carah, & Shaul, 2015).

Instagram has recently launched a feature to help its users distinguish sponsored posts from regular posts, which has a caption underneath the user/s name which clearly states who paid for this post. Under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), fashion bloggers are required to make it clear whether the post is sponsored or not. It keeps the consumer informed that this is propaganda and may not be genuine feelings toward a product. Because we trust our fashion bloggers so much, we want to buy things just because they say we should. We trust them because “they…share and detail much (if not most) of their lives” with their followers (Strugatz, 2016). Their followers feel like they really know them and that’s why they trust their recommendations.

Specific to this study, the United States and Brazil have very different cultural values. The United States is individualistic, low context, and enjoys more direct messages. For Instagram posts, this means that they would be more apt to pay attention to a post that has only one person or focuses on the self, that doesn’t include too many details in the caption, and that employs a direct message that yes, this is an advertisement. Oppositely, Brazil is a collectivistic and high context culture that enjoys more indirect messages. Brazilian consumers would pay more attention to an advertisement that has an emphasis on togetherness or shows the blogger with other people, that has a lot of context in the messages—what else are they doing that day?—and has a less explicit message that this post is an advertisement.

This point is touched upon in the article “Cultural Themes in Brazilian and U.S. Auto Ads: A Cross-Cultural Comparison” (Tansey, Hyman, & Zinkhan, 1990). This article discusses the difference in themes between the two countries, as Brazilian advertisements were more focused on working, urban themes, and the US was more focused on wilderness and leisure themes (Tansey, Hyman, & Zinkhan, 1990, p. 32). Though this study was conducted before the rise of social media and therefore uses print advertising, the differences between the cultures were still relevant. The ads that were looked at were collected over a period of ten years, so these are differences that have existed for some time between the two countries, which makes them perfect to compare in a cross-cultural analysis.

Brazil and the United States are also great to compare because of the different cultural values the countries hold. According to Hofstede, countries are either individualistic or collectivistic. An individualistic country, like the United States, puts an emphasis on the importance of “I” and “self-actualization is important” (De Mooij, & Hofstede, 2010, p. 183). Also according to De Mooij and Hofstede, individualistic cultures are “low-context communication cultures with explicit verbal communication” (De Mooij, & Hofstede, 2010, p. 182). Collectivistic cultures have a focus on the community and are “high-context communication cultures, with an indirect style of communication” (De Mooij, & Hofstede, 2010, p. 182). These are arguably some of the most important cultural differences between two countries, and they play a special importance in advertising because consumers in these countries have certain feelings and preconceived notions before they see an advertisement. If they see something that goes against their culture, they are not likely to buy it because it wouldn’t appeal to them. Global companies have to be cognizant of these differences if they want to appeal to a wide, worldly audience.

Cultures that are low and high context also have different advertising styles. A low context culture does not want the details, they would rather just get to the point. A high context culture would prefer to have those details. For example, an Instagram post in a low context culture would just get to the point: try this makeup. An Instagram post in a high context culture would talk first about what the blogger did that day, why they love the makeup, and then encourage their followers to try the makeup. This is important when crafting an advertisement because low context ads might come off as harsh in a high context culture. The article “Intercultural Communication on Web sites: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Web sites from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context Cultures” describes strategies that high context cultures use on the internet, which is largely low context. Since high and low context are intertwined with individualism and collectivism, it is not surprising that these values are looked at in this study as well. High context cultures were likely to use more human presence on their websites than low context cultures, were more likely to use more images, and had diverse color schemes and web design (Würtz, 2005). This can be applied to Instagram because Brazilian fashion bloggers are hypothesized to use more visual representation than the American fashion bloggers. Their images are also hypothesized to be more collectivistic, hence more humans.

Because of these existing studies, four hypotheses were made:

H1: Brazilian fashion bloggers would emphasize more collectivistic values than American fashion bloggers.

H2: Brazilian fashion bloggers would convey less explicit ads than American fashion bloggers.

H3: Brazilian fashion bloggers would have more indirect forms of messages than American fashion bloggers.

H4: Brazilian fashion bloggers would focus on more visual presentations such as symbols, metaphors, and aesthetic expressions, than American fashion bloggers.

Method

This study will be completed as a content analysis of Instagrams posted by American fashion bloggers and Brazilian fashion bloggers. The specific language and orientation of the pictures will be analyzed by coders. A content analysis is the best method for this study because the effectiveness and the values of these advertisements are being examined.

Sample

Paid advertisements posted by well-known fashion bloggers will be examined in this study. This will be a convenience sample because specific bloggers will need to be chosen. These posts will be chosen because of specific criteria: Is this post an advertisement? Is this post paid? Is this person a well-known fashion blogger (i.e. over 20,000 followers)? Approximately 100 paid advertisements by American fashion bloggers and 100 paid advertisements by Brazilian fashion bloggers will be examined by coders.

Measures

There will be six coders total: two native English speakers, two native Portuguese speakers, and two bilingual speakers. A coding sheet has been created that the coders will follow. On this sheet, the picture itself, the language of the captions, and the amount of likes (in proportion to the amount of followers the particular blogger has) will be examined. These codes will help the researchers to understand what values are important to each culture when shopping for a product, what types of advertisements are effective, and which bloggers are likely to sell products from their advertisements.

Procedure

The coders will examine each Instagram post in its whole. Nothing will be blocked out of the screenshot of the post. The English-speaking coders will examine the American fashion bloggers’ posts, the Portuguese-speaking coders will examine the Brazilian fashion bloggers’ posts, and the bilingual coders will examine a combination of the two. It is inferred that the coders will have an understanding of the different cultures of these countries, so they will be able to accurately code the posts. However, they will be briefed for things to look out for before they begin coding. For example, they will be told that collectivistic cultures would have a picture that includes more than one person. They will be given examples of mock up posts as well as definitions of everything they are coding for.

The independent variable in all of the hypotheses is the fact that the fashion bloggers are Brazilian. The dependent variable of H1 is the collectivistic values, the dependent variable of H2 is explicit ads, the dependent variable of H3 is indirect messages, and the dependent variable of H4 is visual presentations such as symbols, metaphors, and aesthetic expressions. These variables will all be measured in the coding.

Coding Sheet

General Information

1. Coder # 2. Post # 3. Amount of Likes 4. Amount of Followers

5. Username

Post Information

7. Caption Category (choose one in each section)

a. collectivistic b. individualistic

a. explicit/direct ad language b. implicit/indirect ad language

a. high context language b. low context language

Picture Information

8. Photograph Category

a. high visual representation b. low visual representation

a. explicit/direct image of ad b. implicit/indirect image of ad

Language

a. English b. Portuguese c. Bilingual

Discussion

All research points to the fact that Brazilian fashion bloggers will be more collectivistic, more high context, convey more implicit messages, and will be more focused on the visual images than their American counterparts. This is due to their cultural values that were coined by Hofstede and Hall. Compared to a country that is totally opposite them like the United States, it is safe to assume that the paid advertisements would be totally opposite. However, it is important to take into account that not all companies will pay attention to the different cultural values of the country. If an American based company wants to advertise in Brazil, they might not realize that these posts will need to be more collectivistic or include more context. They might not realize that the image should be more visual instead of focused on just one person. The same can be said for a company that is based in Brazil that wants to advertise in the United States. The companies decide exactly what the fashion blogger will be posting, so they need to be mindful. This is the plight of the global company.

It is also likely that the posts that have the most likes will also have more followers. Fashion bloggers that build large followings often do so because they are well liked or well trusted, so people will be likely to purchase products they endorse. When people admire someone, they will want to do whatever they can to be like that person. For example, Kim Kardashian (though not a fashion blogger) often posts paid advertisements on her Instagram. She gets hundreds of thousands of likes on these posts, and because people want to look like Kim, they also want to use these products because they think it will help them achieve her perfect figure or flawless skin.

This research will be valuable to companies because they will know which types of advertisements work best in which countries. If a collectivistic advertisement is getting the most likes by a Brazilian fashion blogger versus an individualistic advertisement that same blogger posted, then it is obvious that the collectivistic advertisement is more effective. Companies will be able to use this information to their advantage when they are asking fashion bloggers to post certain things.

Likewise, the ratio of likes to followers will also benefit companies. If they are employing a fashion blogger who is not getting enough likes on their paid advertisements, then maybe they wouldn’t want to do business with this person. If their “likes” percentage isn’t at least 20 percent of their followers, then they would probably want to do business with this person anymore.

This study will also inform companies whether these advertisements are even worth it. Will people actually buy their products because a fashion blogger posted it? The examination of the likes will also clue the company in about this. The more likes, the more likely someone would be to buy this product. They might even be able to track who clicked on a certain link or who commented on the post and said they bought the product if they were to expand this study.

In the future, companies might want to pay closer attention to who they are paying to post about their products. They will want to make sure that they are spending their money wisely. Maybe Instagram isn’t the place to sell products. Maybe native advertising—sneaky posts—don’t work well for their products. Maybe they are trying to target the wrong people with the fashion blogger they are choosing. They will also want to pay attention to what these posts actually look like and gather different posts that were advertising the same products and see which were most effective.

The future of advertising relies not on billboards or television, but the internet. Instagram has been an advertising platform for a little while now, but they are just now making it easier for “normal” people to post ads. This field of research has endless opportunities that need to be taken.

References

Carah, N., & M. S. (2015, August 12). Brands and Instagram: Point, tap, swipe, glance.

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