企业广告决策:理性计算、经验主义还是文化导向?——基于族群视角的计量分析

Advertising Decisions:Rational Calculation,Rules of Thumb or Cultural Tradition? Empirical Study from a Perspective of Ethnic Groups

厂商在广告决策中面临着特别多的不确定性,这使得"理性决策"十分困难。考虑到"理性"资源的稀缺性,厂商可能放弃复杂的理性计算,转而按照文化传统来进行选择。本文引入人类学的"族群"概念(基本含义为"文化共同体"),以广东省为例,研究族群文化对厂商广告决策的影响。广东省有三个族群:讲粤语的广府族群、讲客家话的客家族群、讲闽南方言的福佬族群(以潮汕人为主体),他们在华人经济圈占有举足轻重的地位。分析发现,混合族群区企业的广告密度与广府企业没有显著差异,客家、福佬企业的广告密度则显著低于广府企业,这主要是因为广府文化和混合文化对民营企业和外资企业的广告投入有促进作用。此外,厂商在广告决策当中并不像经济学理论所认为的那样,充分考虑各种复杂的经济因素,而只遵循三条简单的经验法则:①"出了新产品就做广告";②"产品卖不出就做广告";③"不用自己推销就不做广告"。本文表明,目前中国厂商的一些决策并不是高度理性化的,而是在很大程度上遵循着文化传统和经验法则。

Extreme uncertainty that faces firms in advertising decisions leads to the very difficult realiza- tion of rational decisions. Considering the scarcity of rational resources, firms may give up complex rational calculation and select advertisements in accordance with cultural tradition in turn. This paper introduces the eoncept of ethnic group in anthropology, whose basic meaning is cultural community, and takes Guangdong province as an example to study the effeets of ethnic culture on advertising decisions. In Guangdong province, there are three ethnic groups, namely Cantonese, Hakka and HoMo （mainly from Chaoshan）, and they occupy a pivotal position in the Chinese economy. It shows that, advertising intensity of Cantonese firms is not signifi- cantly different from the one in mixed communities, but significantly higher than the one of Hakka and HoMo firms,mainly owing to the positive role of Cantonese and mixed culture in advertising input of private firms and foreign-invested firms. In addition, firms do not seem to take full account of complex economic factors in economic theories, but only comply with three simple rules of thumb： the first one is advertising with the e- mergence of new produets; the second one is advertising when products are slow-moving; the third one is no advertising when products are promoted by others. This paper implies that, currently some decisions of Chinese firms are not highly rational, but greatly affected by cultural tradition and rules of thumb.