A Subjectivist Approach to Advertising: The Case of Vitasoy in Hong Kong

Abstract

Contemporary neoclassical economics ignores the subjective evaluation of information and therefore fails to explain the persuasive role of advertising. This article explains the roles of advertising and promotion strategies from a subjectivist lens. In particular, it attempts to use a phenomenological approach to explain the persuasive power of advertising. It will argue that when consumers watch a piece of advertising, they will interpret the message conveyed in the content by their stock of knowledge, which is cumulated from everyday life experience. If consumers fail to interpret the advertising content, we cannot expect them to accept and buy the product. In other words, the content of advertising has to make sense to consumers. Sense making implies subjective understanding. When consumers find the advertising content makes sense, then consumers and the advertising agent (on behalf of the product) share ‘common sense’, or share the same definition of the situation, which can be made possible only through intersubjective communication. Since knowledge is obtained from everyday life experience and has history, in order to share the same biography with consumers, a successful piece of advertising requires the firm to know consumers’ personal growth history, racial identity, culture and social and economic backgrounds. The phenomenological approach to explain the persuasive power of advertising is applied to understand the successful advertising campaign made by Vitasoy, a well-known soybean drink in Hong Kong.