Abstract

Portrayals of death in advertising for non-death related products are exceedingly rare, in sharp contrast to numerous death portrayals in other media sources such as movies and TV programs. Additionally, advertising increasingly depicts other controversial topics, such as sex and violence, but not death. Is death the last taboo in advertising? This qualitative study uses a grounded theory approach to explore death as a taboo topic in advertising through in-depth interviews with twenty consumers—purposively chosen so that half of the participants were aged in their 20 s and half were older than 65. Participants were shown six current, non-shocking ads containing death portrayals to understand how consumers think and feel about death portrayals in advertising. Differences in consumer interpretations based on age emerged. In addition, ad execution factors that helped consumers accept death portrayals included the use of humor, non-human characters, unrealistic situations, and evocative music.

摘要

与死亡无关的产品广告中的死亡描述极为罕见，这与电影和电视节目等其他媒体资源中的大量死亡描述形成鲜明对比。此外，广告越来越多地描绘其他有争议的话题，例如性和暴力，但不涉及死亡。死亡是广告的最后禁忌吗？这项定性研究使用扎根理论的方法通过对 20 名消费者的深入访谈来探索死亡作为广告中的一个禁忌话题——有目的地选择一半的参与者年龄在 20 多岁，另一半年龄在 65 岁以上。参与者被展示六个包含死亡描绘的当前非令人震惊的广告，以了解消费者对广告中的死亡描绘的看法和感受。出现了基于年龄的消费者解释差异。此外，