Is Outdoor Advertising Fading Out in the Digital Era? – A Cross-Cultural Study on Attitudes toward Advertising

This paper examines cross-cultural differences in attitudes toward outdoor advertising and investigates the effects of different belief factors on consumer attitudes. Hofstede’s (2001) cultural differences and cognitive dissonance theory are applied for the analysis. Data were collected from university students in the United Kingdom, China, and Hong Kong. The results show that Hong Kong and Chinese respondents held the most favorable attitudes toward outdoor advertising while UK respondents held the least favorable. Furthermore, the respondents from the three areas had a more favorable attitude toward outdoor advertising compared with Internet advertising. The results suggest that the advertisers should consider seriously the spending on outdoor advertising which is still favourable in the digital era.