Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2012)
THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN PRESERVING THE ROMANIAN IDENTITY IN LOCAL ADVERTISING
Abstract
The following paper intends to reveal the involvement of women into coining efficient communication campaigns for different product categories promoted on the Romanian market. Product consumption explicitly depends on target interests and social integration considering its division into two directions according to age groups (the old generation and the young, “new media generation”) after the 1989 Revolution. Our main purpose consists in identifying female profiles in Romanian advertising starting from Geert Hofstede’s theory. He created a fivedimension model (power distance, individualism/collectivism, gender of nations, uncertainty avoidance, long/short-term orientation) of national culture, by analyzing local and global brands, on the one hand, and different product categories (dairy, coffee and chocolate, drugs, banks and insurance, mobile phones, home appliances), on the other. This paper will apply the content analysis method, whose purpose is to reveal the Romanian identity promoted by the female characters of at least 50 TV commercials. In order to get a wealth of information, this study focuses on important aspects such as tradition, independence vs. involvement in family responsibilities, authority vs. subordination, living environment (city or countryside), as well as relationships with men and children. At the end of this research, we expect to reach two important goals. The first one is to establish a relationship between product categories, local identity, and the Romanian target, which is still in transition after the Anti- Communist Revolution. As for the second goal, we hope to discover some female patterns which are very well exploited in Romanian advertising based on cultural and social background. The hypothesis that strongly supports this research is that women have an essential role in preserving local identity, appealing to the Romanian consumer in commercials created especially for them.
