Italianicity goes global

National and transcultural strategies in advertising discourse

Eva L. Wyss | University of Zurich, Switzerland

This paper represents an attempt to position pragmatics and language functions in a context of narrative analysis. Applying the theoretical frame proposed by Theodore Levitt, this article uses four TV commercials as case studies to demonstrate how linguistic and pictorial codes are employed to communicate national-cultural product identities. Focussing on Italianicity I show how businesses develop transcultural strategies and how they handle the predicament of transcultural advertising strategies. These strategies, I argue, are not innocent: once a brand that is based on national stereotypes has been established, a change of product identity to encompass the risks the introduction of a conflict in which the brand identity can be simply damaged rather than transformed.

Published online: 13 November 2012
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.226.11wys

Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Barroso, Paulo M.

2017. In Advertising and Branding, ► pp. 45 ff.

Barroso, Paulo M.

2017. In Seduction in Popular Culture, Psychology, and Philosophy [Advances in Psychology, Mental Health, and Behavioral Studies, ], ► pp. 232 ff.

Svetanant, Chavalin, Brian Ballsun-Stanton & Attapol T. Rutherford

2022. Emotional engagement in Thai and Japanese insurance advertising: corpus-based keyword analysis. Corpora 17:1 ► pp. 69 ff.

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