Abstract:
The recent opening up of the Chinese economy has seen a rapid growth in the advertising
industry, which has also lead to the exposure of advertising for socially
sensitive, or controversial, products, such as condoms or sexual disease prevention,
that may offend the local community. Another Asian country, Malaysia, has a
population with a majority of Muslims, which also has problems related to the exposure
of controversial advertising images. This paper surveys 238 Chinese and 379
Malaysians to determine their level of offence towards various gender/sex-related
products and the main reasons for offence towards advertising. Comparisons between
gender were made to discover any significant gender/cultural differences.
