Signals of global advertising appeals in emerging markets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate advertising appeals and cultural values in television advertisements from newly emerging markets. Specifically, the paper hypothesizes that the advertising appeals in the advertisements of sub‐Saharan African (SSA) emerging consumer markets (ECMs) with higher level of economic development (South Africa) will reflect more hedonic appeals than the ones from SSA ECMs with a lower level of economic development (Ghana). The paper also developes hypotheses in relations to Munene, Schwartz, and Smith's cultural value framework in SSA. Design/methodology/approach – The research approach used in this paper, entails a combination of qualitative and empirical content analysis of 505 unduplicated advertisements from Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. Content analysis technique is appropriate if the paper is focused on testing how environmental trends (e.g. cultural values, economic situations, etc.) impact the content of sampled advertisements from different regions of the world (Holbrook, 1977). Findings – The paper reveals some global advertising appeals. The findings from the paper also suggest that the advertisements from SSA are homogenous in terms of the use of the cultural values underlying the conservatism dimension and heterogeneous with respect to the use of the cultural values underlying the hierarchy dimension. Practical implications – The paper uncovers important dimensions that can be employed in implementing standardized and localized advertising programs in SSA. Originality/value – The paper identifies novel categories of cultural values (e.g. hospitality) in the television commercials from SSA.