Global Advertising in a Global Culture

Globalization stems from many sources, but as Thomas Gould makes clear, advertising is a primary driver of trans-global cultural change. Gould argues that advertising often carries unfiltered and unblocked cultural messages in addition to commercial speech; as such, it not only builds consumer demand to open new markets but also changes consumer expectations and values. At the same time, the evolution of increasingly targeted mobile and social marketing is transforming local and regional cultures into a new mix of global branding and individualized micro-space. Gould examines how advertising professionals negotiate these rocky and quickly-changing cultural terrains. He also explores how advertising—an increasingly global form of communication—is becoming a platform for change at the individual level, and as a direct consequence, at the social and political levels.

Through the Internet, the consumer is gaining control of what he or she watches. The change is evolving slowly, but it’s not over. The so-called “captive audience” is disappearing, and new strategy is necessary for the advertising industry; but the industry on the whole doesn’t seem to get it. That is what Gould’s book is about.

Thomas H. P. Gould is professor of journalism and mass communications and chair of the advertising sequence at the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University. He is the author of Tracking Peer Review: Past, Present, and a Questionable Future (2012) and Creating the Academic Commons: Guidelines for Learning, Teaching, and Research (2011).