Culture and advertising have a long history to begin with. Advertising is mostly centred around culture- influenced and inspired by it. The interesting part is, in a way, sometimes advertising is behind creating a culture. We will talk about that later, but first let’s delve into some details as to what defines culture.

Culture majorly comprises of a particular group of people having a certain language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. Culture is massively diverse, because we have innumerable groups of people spread across the globe. Each group has a certain defining characteristic that comes in the ambit of culture. More technically, culture is a shared pattern of behaviours and beliefs that is understood by socialising. It is an identity of the group endorsed by social patterns unique to the group.

When advertising comes into the picture, the type of it relies heavily on the culture of the area where those advertisements are going to be published. As culture develops people’s mindset and affect their choices, it should be a wise move to cater to the people of that particular set of ideas regarding purview of human life. Having mentioned that, the other side of the truth is that with the rise of globalisation and networking through social media, world has now actually become a small place. What once was a cross-cultural difference is slowly amalgamating into a single, trans-national culture.

There was a time when the world was divided into giant homogenous groups, divided by boundaries. But in the late eighteenth century, things started to change. Industrialisation and urbanization slowly started seeding in the western countries. Urbanization is a major factor in forming popular culture. People who were once confined in small villages were exposed to different culture in the cities. Thanks to industrialisation, the trend of mass production began. Construction of roads, railways and infrastructure led to the increase in the need of education. Then came commercial printing which played a huge role in mass communication. All these factors led to the development of popular culture. The emerging mass media in the form of newspaper, television and radio impacted the existing culture and vice-versa thereby shaping up the life of pop-culture.