Chinese Food Experience: The relation between food advertisements and culture background

Name: Ran Wang

WRIT1133-27, MWF 12:00

Prof. Eric Leake

04/08/12

Nowadays, with the improvement of people’s income, all over the world people are willing to spend money on food which they believe is delicious. Also, diet is an indispensable and essential aspect for peoples’ life. On the other hand, we should consider the culture diversity is large, different groups of people have different lifestyle in each social classes and geographic regions. So, it is a best way to use advertisement way to introduce each food. As a result, the competitions for each food company are fierce. In this essay, I would like to compare two foods flavoring advertisements which are Chinese food flavoring advertisement and American food flavoring. By consider these two countries advertisements, no matter in their design and rhetorical function, you can find what the dominant factors are. After analyze these two advertisements, I want to analyze the connection between the food and culture developed issue.

First, I would like to talk about the Chinese food flavoring which is called Lao Gan Ma. Actually it is a famous chili sauce in China; all most people know what kind of chili sauce this is and how good this brand is. First, when you look the color of this Chili sauce packaging, you can see the main color is read. Actually, there is an intimate relationship between red color and the chili sauce; it is a good way by choosing the color to attract the customers. To analyze the audience for Lao Gan Ma chili sauce, I believe are the people who like to eat spicy food will buy it. Also, because Lao Gan Ma has its own particular recipes, there are so many returned customers because it tastes very good. Next, I am willing to explain and translate the design and the rhetorical function for Lao Gan Ma Chili sauce. When you look at the bottle of packing, there is a head of the woman which means who is the inventor of Lao Gan Ma chili sauce. This person’s name is Hua Bi Tao, is she established Lao Gan Ma chili sauce when the year of 1996. It is one of the best food flavoring companies in China. The reason why Lao Gan Ma is famous is there are some particular recipes in this chili sauce. Meanwhile, you can see there is bunches of text on the bottle, which is explain the history of this company and emphasize why is this recipes better than other food flavoring companies. I believe this is a best way to let customers convinced.

By observing the advertisement-poster of Lao Gan Ma, We also can find the Lao Gan Ma chili sauce advertisement post on the price, and emphasize how cheap the price is, it is only 6.90 Chinese yuan, which means above 1 dollar per bottle. Because China has huge population, also it is true that China is a developing country. There are so many people live in the low-class status, so the price is very important to them. On the other hand, the price is very important to customers, Chinese always research how to made food more delicious, whatever the person who are live in low-class or high-class status. For this reason, there are lots kinds of food companies in China, the competitions for each food companies are fierce, so the exceptional price are vital part to all of customers In China.

For American food flavoring advertisement, I would like to talk about the miracle whip, which is made in Germany---Kraft Company. For this advertisement-poster, first, it using the creative way to attract the customers—miracles seesaw. Also, using this way can let the customers feel this miracle whip is extremely lighter than other sauces, which can imply there are low fat in this miracle whip. In addition, when you focus on the details about this miracle whip, it says “Only 4.9% fat” in this miracle whip; it confirmed the customers’ imaginations for this advertisement-poster. Furthermore, it is the same way with the Chinese Lao Gan Ma food flavoring advertisement, the main color for this advertising background is white, which means this miracle whip is pure food and it does not has additives. The audience for this miracle whip, I believe is the American people who like the food which is pure and nourishing. Also, this miracle whip is like the whipped cream recipe, so for adults, it is too hard and waste time to make that, choose this miracle whip is very convenience. For kids, all most of them like foods which are sweet very much, so the miracle whip is a good choice for kids.

On the other hand, the price for food is not very important to all of American customers. It is different with China, America is a developed country, not lots of people are worried about whether the food healthy or not rather than the price. For this phenomenon, to compare the china food advertisement and American food advertisement, it is totally different opinion between Chinese and Americans.

After I read the article Authenticity in American, which is written by Joshua Freedman and Dan Jurafsky, from the article, I did find the word “health” is very important to the food advertisements. Because Americans average per capita income are higher than Chinese, so whether the lower-class American customers or higher-class American customers always considering about the issue of healthy commodity first.

Talking about the America people’s opinions, it is different to Chinese because there are lots kinds of food companies in China, the competitions for each food companies are fierce. Although the health food is also important to Chinese customers, the first thing they are going to consider about is whether the food price cheap or not. As a result, when Chinese are choosing which food is better, they think the lower price is indispensable to them. In conclusion, I believe there is an intimate relationship with country development level. The price or health, which is more important to these two different countries customers, is depending on national economic development and average per capita income.