Nationality and Negotiation of Advertising Meanings

Stephanie O'Donohoe, The University of Edinburgh'

INTRODUCTION
Reflecting on the literature concerning country-of-origin effects on consumer perceptions of products and services, several
scholars have bemoaned the limited way in which the concept has
been interpreted and applied. It has been pointed out, for example,
that country-of-origin effects apply to phenomena other than goods
and services, and that multiple places of origin may be associated
with these phenomena (Papadopoulos 1993). Askegaard and Ger
(1997) call for broader and richer conceptualizations, arguing that
questions of meaning, context and stereotypes are fundamental yet
neglected aspects of place of origin effects. Drawing on readerresponse theory (Stem 1989), these authors also emphasize the role
of the consumer as a reader or co-creator of marketing meanings.
This paper takes as its starting point these developments in the
country-of-origin literature. Reporting on an interpretive study of
young adults' everyday advertising experiences, it explores meanings of the perceived place of origin of advertisements among a
group of young Scots. As these meanings seemed to be intertwined
with their sense of national identity, the paper first provides some
context for discussion of the study by introducing the reader to
Scotland and the issue of national identity.

NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE SCOTTISH

CONTEXT
As Gabriel and Lang (1995) observe, modernity conspires
against fixed identities, making the construction of self-identity an
interminable, reflexive and symbolic project. Our identities are not
simply the productof our personal relationships, lifestyle decisions
and consumer choices; they are constituted by the ways in which we
write these into our own "coherent, yet continually revised, biographical narratives" (Giddens 1991:5). The construction of such
narratives becomes particularly problematic in postmodern society, which highlights the fluid and fragmented nature of identity
(Bauman 1996; Elliott and Wattansuwan 1998; Firat and Dholakia
1998). Similar challenges and problems exist on social as well as
personal levels:
A group's identity, like personal identity, is problematic; it
must be fought over andforged out ofshared experiences and
traditions; it must discard attributions imposed upon the
group by others; it must discover and celebrate its own
continuity with the past; it must choose who its friends and
enemies are, where its boundaries lie, what its symbols are
and so on (Gabriel and Lang 1995:85)
Such concerns resonate with those addressed in the literature
on national identity. The nation-state-a fusion of the political (the
state), the social (society) and the cultural (the nation)-is largely a
creation of modernity and the Enlightenment (Hague 1996). As
McCrone (1992:9) observes.
Modernity had aligned the national economy, polity and
culture so that citizenship and an allegiance to the sovereign

^The author is grateful to the Nuffield Foundation for funding the

main part of the fieldwork, and to The University of Edinburgh's
Faculty of Social Sciences for funding the pilot study.

state provided a clear and unambiguous

identity.
Postmodernity, on the other hand, pointed to the limited
nature of state sovereignty in an interdependent world, arui
highlighted the often contradictory and competing identities
on offer.
Contemporary nation-states and national identities are under
pressure from a variety of sources, ranging from the reassertion of
ethnic identities to the rapid pace of globalization (Dowds and
Young 1996; Firat and Dholakia 1998). Many commentators have
recognized the complex interplay between the global and the local,
however. Hall (1992) makes a persuasive case for globalization
having "a pluralizing effect on identities, producing a variety of
possibilities and new positions of identity". Similarly, Firat and
Dholakia (1998:106-7) argue that globalization does not mean that
one style or form dominates others:
Rather, it is lh e diffusion ofa II differentforms and styles across
the world...thepostmodern consumer experience is not one of
committing to a single way of being or a single form of
existence...
Nonetheless, Gabriel and Lang (1995:93) remind us that
cohesion "cannot simply be wished away from identity, simply
because it has become problematic". Nations are formed by "the
constant renewal and retelling ofour tale by each generation ofour
descendants" (Smith 1986:208); they are "imagined communities"
offering a sense of belonging in time and space, deep comradeship
and communion, even with those whom we do not know (Anderson
1983). If we consider Scotland as "a landscape of the mind, a place
of the imagination" it may be cluttered with cliches of tartan, kilts
and heather, but it also offers "a powerful set of images, based on
romance, sadness, defeat, hardship, conflict and struggle" (McCrone
1992: 17-18).
On a more prosaic level, Scotland's five million inhabitants
live in a"stateless nation", since it is part of the larger administrative
nation-state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland (Hague 1996). The Scottish and English Crowns were
joined in 1603 when James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I of
England, and the Parliaments joined together in 1707 under the
Treaty of Union. This makes Britain an invented nation, superimposed onto much older loyalties and alignments (Colley 1992).
Indeed, since it was founded without the firm alignment of state,
civil society and nation, "the boundaries of British nationality,
identity and citizenship are only very imprecisely drawn and
understood" (Cohen 1995:7). Given the dominance of England,
however. Crick (1992) suggests that the other nations within the
United Kingdom possess to a greater or lesser extent "a helpfully
integrative anti-Englishness; or at least a pleasing consciousness of
being different from the English". This may be understood at least
in part as a "fight against the bestowal of identity by the core on the
periphery" (Zagratzki 1996:11).
Despite the Union, there remained in Scotland an "ancient,
rankling hostility to the English founded upon centuries of past
conflict" (Nairn 1974:88). For their part, the English have always
regarded the Scots "with an element of fear and not a little incomprehension" (Cohen 1995:9). Considering contemporary relations
between the two, Hague (1996) uses Bauman's (1990) idea ofthe
stranger as"ncither friend nor enemy, but possibly both", to suggest

684

Advances in Consumer Research

Volume 26, 1999

Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 26) 1685

that Scotland has been "England's friend and enemy". An examination of the economic, political and cultural differences contributing to this ambivalent relationship is beyond the scope of this paper.
It is important to note, however, that even after 1707, Scotland
remained an autonomous civil society, retaining control over its
church, legal and educational systems. Indeed,
...there was no doubt at the beginning of the nineteenth
century-just as there is no doubt today-that "Scotland" was
a distinct entity ofsome kind, felt to be such both by the people
living in it and by ail travellers who ventured into it from
outside, Ithad(asitstillhas)adifferent "social ethic"...(Nairn
1974:88-9)
In recent years, Scotland could be said to have experienced an
"all-round national renaissance" and a new cultural self-awareness,
expressed through film, theatre, writing, music, and art (Zagratzki
1996). In keeping with this national confidence, Scots voted in 1997
for a Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers, which will come
into effect by the year 2000. The people of Wales and Northern
Ireland have also voted for their own national assemblies, and this,
not to mention the drive towards greater European integration
(Cohen 1995; Marquand 1995) has led to considerable debate about
the future of British national identity.

THE PRESENT STUDY

The discussion presented below is drawn from a broader
qualitative study of young adults' everyday experiences of advertising. Seeking to provide a "thick description" (Geertz 1973), the
research was conducted in the British cultural studies tradition of
audience ethnography (Moores 1993). A combination of small
group discussions (usually with four participants) and individual
interviews was used in this study. Small groups were used to obtain
peer interaction while still allowing Individual comments and
interpretations to be explored in some depth. Personal interviews
were used to facilitate more detailed exploration of individual
experiences, interpretations and idiosyncrasies (Robson and Foster
1989). In order to address a range of experiences, age, gender and
broad occupational status quotas were used; participants were
students, working or unemployed, and among the older workers, a
distinction was made between graduates and non-graduates. A pilot
study involved four small group discussions and two individual
interviews, and the main research, involving fourteen groups and
fourteen individual interviews, took place in Edinburgh in 1991. In
total, 82 young adults participated, and tape-recorded discussion
generally lasted between one and a half to two hours.
The study encouraged participants to describe their experiences of advertising in their own words, in their own way, and with
their own examples: rather than imposing a specific set of ads on
them, they were asked to talk about any ads which they liked,
disliked or remembered for any reason, and from any time or
medium. Subsequent discussion emerged from, and was grounded
in, their own experiences and descriptions of ads. A sorting task
based on Kelly's repertory grid technique was also used to facilitate
discussion and obtain insights into participants' organization of
cultural knowledge (Fransella and Bannister 1977; Spradley 1979).
The ads mentioned in discussion served as the elements, and were
presented in groups of three. Participants were asked to identify
"the odd one out" on whatever criteria came to mind. At the end of
each session, the young adults looked through some magazines and
talked about any ads which attracted their attention.
Following Glaser and Strauss (1967), an attempt was made to
developgroundedtheory,emergingfrom and illustrated by the data

collected. Emergent categories and theirproperties were developed

by comparing them with instances from further fieldwork and other
cases, by searching for negative instances, and by discussing
interpretations with colleagues from various social science backgrounds. The study's participants are referred to below as "informants" rather than "respondents", in keeping with the attempt to
ground the study in their language and culture, rather than those of
the researcher (Spradley 1979).

FINDINGS
The youngadults provided rich and detailed accountsof a wide
range of ads and their meanings. Throughout the discussions and
sortingexercises, it became evident that informants categorized ads
in many different ways, and it was in this context that the perceived
origins of ads emerged as a theme. The main distinctions made were
between "Scottish" and "English" ads, and between "British" ads
and those from Europe, America, and elsewhere. The cues guiding
their categorizations, and the meanings associated with the different categories, are discussed below.
Scottish ads
"Scottish" ads were discussed as a distinct category, although
as Papadopoulos (1993) would predict, attributing a place of origin
to ads was not always straightforward. Informants generally considered an ad for a Scottish product to be a Scottish ad, although
several people suggested that an ad for Irn-Bru, a soft drink brand
which has seeped into the fabric of Scottish culture, "had probably
been made in England". Indeed, Irn-Bru's advertising at the time
was created by the London-based agency Lowe-Howard-Spink.
The murky issue of origin is also highlighted by some discussions
about an ad for Persil detergent, which informants knew was the
product of a multinational company. Despite the product's origins,
this ad was described as a "genuine Scottish advert" because it
featured a popular Scottish actor and portrayed the characters and
rural setting in an amusing but authentic light.
When informants talked about Scottish advertising, they often
associated it with low-budget ads, many of which were "local" or
"regional". The terms "local" and "regional" were often used
interchangeably, but some informants referred to national ads
which had been dubbed into local or regional accents as "regional".
One informant suggested that
// 's quite nice to see local, you know, regional adverts on telly
like that. Cos you know a lot of Persil ones are all sort of
London-based... [male graduate workers 21-24]
Whatever their merits in this respect, however, these ads were
universally condemned as "cheap", "tacky", "horrible" and "nasty".
Local television commercials were described as "blip adverts",
sometimes lasting only five seconds, using "elevator music" and
"wonky pictures", and often broadcast at three in the morning.
Local cinema ads (particularly those for restaurants) were similarly
ridiculed; these were typically described as extremely low-budget,
with "bad,crackling prints" used for yearsonend,andhaving"little
or no thought put into them". Only slightly higher up the evolutionary ladder was a long-standing television campaign for a furniture
warehouse which featured a Scottish sports presenter. Informants
dissected these ads with distaste, unimpressed by the choice of
celebrity or the production techniques involved:
/ think he must have been cheap to get.,.they thought "Och,
he's cheap, he's Scottish, everyone will love him" [unemployed female 21-24]

686 / Nationality and Negotiation of Advertising Meanings

...they have him standing there and he's obviously meant to be
standing in the shop, but it's obvious that he's standing in a
studio nowhere near the shop, with a photo ofthe shop behind
[unemployed male 18-20]
Such ads were often characterized as "embarrassing", to the
extent that the hope was commonly expressed that they were not
shown outside Scotland. At the same time, however, informants
were quite defensive about these ads, recognizing that their severe
budget constraints made them soft targets:
I guess I like the more, not glamorous, the ones that have a bit
more thought in them. That's what I mean about the Scottish
ones. But I guess they don't really have the money, I mean all
they have perhaps is a picture of you know, what they're
selling. And they have like 30 seconds to say "this is what the
sale is" or whatever and that's them [female student 18-20]
Usually the regional ones are on a low budget, whereas these
big conglomerates like Pepsi, Coke, can afford to spend a lot
of money [male workers 21-24]
Regardless of budgetary issues, the young adults were very
sensitive to how Scotland and Scottishness were portrayed in ads.
They understood why certain brands relied heavily on Scottish
imagery:
Ifyou were doing porridge, then you 'd probably try and play
up the Scottish thing. I mean, ifyou had a product you would
probably look towards the root ofthe product or what it's
associated with [unemployed female 21-24]
Occasionally, an ad could "play up the Scottish thing" in a way
which was appreciated for its irony or gentle humor. Nonetheless,
informants were quick to condemn "stereotypical" ads which based
their imagery around haggis-eating, whisky-swilling, ginger-haired
characters wearing kilts with "padlocked sporrans" and "false
Scottish accents". Indeed, regional ads in particular were lambasted
for their "fake", "funny" or "really strong" Scottish accents, wilh
informants (who were after all urban dwellers) pointing out that
they themselves did not walk around prefacing each sentence with
"Och aye the noo". Various ads were accused of "trying lo be too
Scottish" or appealing too blatantly to a sense of national pride. Ads
mentioned in this context included one for Scottish Blend tea which
had kettles whistling the tune of "Auld Langsyne", and a campaign
for the Dai/y/fecort/newspaper which claimed that "real Scots read
the Record". As one informant commented,
// annoys me, actually, the newspapers are forever saying
"printed in Scotland", that sort of stuff I think that's a bit
patronizing [male students 18-20]
Some ads were more successful in appealing to informants'
sense of themselves as Scots. Lamenting the poor standard of many
Scottish ads, a young male student commented that "the only good
one's Im-Bru, you think that's brilliant and you feel proud to be
Scottish". Interestingly, this ad was a parody of "young, trendy"
styles of advertisingassociated with Coke and Pepsi. In othercases,
particular elements ofads resonated with a Scottish sensibility. For
example, ads for Famous Grouse whisky "kind of strike a chord,
with the grouse being a Scottish bird". Similarly, ads for McEwan 's
lager featured music from local Edinburgh or Glasgow bands; this
was seen to "raise the pride" in Scotland, and to provide "something

you can relate to". Informants also spoke favorably about ads which
featured familiar parts of Scotland:
It's good to see an advert showing your own country as well.
The Tennent's one. A s soon as he walked down Princes Street,
the statue, the castle behind it, and Bianco's at the west endI ken [know] where he is! [male workers 18-20]
Scottish vs Englisli ads
When informants discussed Scottish ads, thoughts of their
English neighbors were rarely far away. Various comments indicated a degree of self-consciousness, and a concem with how
Scottish ads would be perceived in England. Forexample, a young
male student said that he "would hate English people to see Scottish
ads-it might give them the wrong impression". On the other hand,
an ad for a Scottish utilities company was admired partly because
It pushes Scotland, you know what I mean? I think they're
maybe shown in Britain so English people will be able to
picture it more... [male workers 18-20]
I'm proud to be a Scot...if I see that Loch Ness one, ifI see an
English person or someone from somewhere else looking at
that, they might think it's pretty... [unemployed males 18-20]
Consistent with Hague's (1996) notion of Scotland as
"England's friend a(/enemy",varlouscomments indicated a sense
of rivalry. For example, a male student noted that an ad featuring a
famous footballer "didn't go down too well in Scotland cos he's
English". When Scottish ads were discussed in relation to English
ones, Scotland was often thought to suffer by comparison:
You see an English advert and then you see a Scottish one and
you think the advert's so bad compared to the English one. And
you feel like Scotland's second best cos they make crap adverts
[male students 18-20]
Although they thought that Scottish ads were generally inferior to English ones, informants often accounted for this on financial grounds. Thus, two female graduate workers discussed a
Scottish ad which had not impressed them. One suggested that the
advertisers"...couldn't afford anybody nice",and the otherchipped
in with "couldn't afford an English person!". Similarly,
You would maybe look at it and say well, you can tell it's
Scottish because not as much money has been spent on it as the
English would spend on it. [unemployed males 21-24]
In anothergroup, it was recognized that some English ads were
also low-budget, but this was seen to be relative, as "there's more
affluence down there". Running through many comments was a
general sense of Scotland and Scottishness being excluded or
marginalized. This was expressed at a very general level by one
informant, who suggested that television in general had been
"Englishified":
... there's talk of Britain, it's never Scotland and England, it's
England and Britain. That's what I hate. Even Northern
Ireland and Scotland's all Britain, and England's a place on
its own [unemployed females 18-20]
Several informants complained that English magazines or
television programs contained ads for products which were not

Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 26) / 687

even available in Scotland. Others commented that Scottish accents
were under-represented in advertising, and just as they resented
"strong" Scottish accents in regional ads, they were suspicious of
some voiceovers which appeared to be Scottish:
You'll probably find that it's mostly English people doing a
Scottish accent. It really annoys me. [female workers 21-24]
They don't even say it right, they 're all English [unemployed
males 18-20]
On some occasions, however, Scottish ads allowed informants
to feel better about themselves in relation to their English neighbors. Referring to "this Scottish-English thing", one informant
talked about enjoying ads which "get the old dig into our friends
down south" and "take the mickey out of the English". He particularly liked a Scottish beer ad which showed a "droll Scottish guy"
driving around Glasgow, showing his youthful haunts to his English friend. The two men visited the Scot's hometown and the
location of his first date, and then they went to the pub where he had
been given his first drink:
And the English guy goes "Oh, has it changed much?". And he
[the Scot] goes "Oh, they let anyone in nowadays". And the
English guy is left staring at his drink., [male graduate
worker 21-24]
One ad in particular resonated with informants because of the
way it contrasted England and Scotland, and indeed the two capital
cities. This ad (also for beer) was described in great detail. It
featured a young Scot travelling to work on the London underground system:
Well it started with him being on the Tube which was crowded,
a lot ofJostling. It looks as if it's a bit unpleasant and he got
out and he saw this poor soul, lost, looking for directions.
Everybody is fust going past and it sort of portrayed London
as an unfriendly place I suppose. Everyone's very busy. He got
into a lift which was again very busy and he decided to junk it
so he went out, dumped his briefcase or whatever, fust at the
Reception. The receptionist and the porter were just busy
jabbering away ignoring him. And then he came back up to
Scotland. Smiles and talking to people on the street corners
and then he met friends in a pub. And they must've known by
some sort of telepathy or something because they 'd got him a
pint already. Quite obvious messages. I'd like to see how that
went down with an English audience! [male student 21-24]
This ad resonated with informants on various levels. They
identified with the portrayal of London as overwhelming, impersonal and unfriendly; as an older female worker put it, "it's a big
place and you just want to get back to Edinburgh, to the wee pubs
you know and everybody you know in it". Some informants
projected themselves into the situation depicted, to the extent that
they imagined what the main character was thinking. Some claimed
to have telephoned friends working in London to lell them about the
ad, and many knew people who were in similar situations:
I've got a lot offriends who went down to work in London. A
lot of them are still there. But a lot of them have either come
back to Edinburgh or Glasgow or whatever, or want to come
back, so it really appeals to me personally [male students 2124]

"British" vs "foreign" advertising

In the course of the discussions, the young adults referred to a
range ofads which were made outside Britain, At times they drew
on their experience of vacations or travel abroad, but they also
talked about television programs or articles in newspapers or
magazines which featured ads from around the world. When
discussing these ads, informants' Scottishness appeared to be much
less of an issue. Passing comparisons were made between ads from
other countries and "adverts over here", without it being specified
where exactly "here" might be. Sometimes, however, informants
appeared to affiliate themselves with Britain rather than with
Scotland, and on (rare) occasions, they positioned themselves as
Europeans:
/ suppose we 're quite lucky. Clive James did a program of all
these adverts from all over the world and there was some
really sort of pornographic bra adverts in France,..[female
graduate workers 21-24]
Did you see the programs which were comparing the different
AIDS ads there had been over Europe?...There's no way we'd
be allowed to see anything resembling a condom in an advert
in Britain [male graduate workers 21-24]
The ones with the coming down ofthe Berlin Wall, Ifound that
insulting. Both Coke and Pepsi did it and they had shots ofthe
Berlin Wall coming down, Ceaucescu getting overturned, and
all the sort of '89 revolutions. And then they had "Pepsi would
like to congratulate Europe on getting its act together " sort of
thing [male students 21-24]
Informants' discussion of "American" ads suggested that this
label covered some very different styles of advertising. One style
had more to do with the imagery of ads for all-American products
such as Coke and Pepsi. An unemployed informant described some
ads as "Americanized...young, trendy". Many references were
made to the young, glamorous American teenagers, and to the
American rock and pop music used in such ads. In this context it is
perhaps not surprising that several informants considered a glossy
television campaign for Levi's jeans to be American. While the
American origins of the product may influence perception ofthe
ads, one informant commented:
/ know they're not really American, but it's just the heat and
everyone has got these dresses that are really low cut and sort
of lying back in the sun and watching whoever it is going past,
this gorgeous girl or gorgeous guy in their gorgeous jeans,
[female students 18-20]
More surprising was the belief among some informants that
the ads for Volkswagen cars and Hamlet cigars were American.
Here the products themselves did not have an American image, and
the ads did not show "young, trendy" people. Perhaps the sheer
production quality of these ads was equated with America. Informants sometimes assumed ads to be Scottish rather than English
because of apparently lower budgets. If they considered America to
be a more affluent country than Britain, they may have expected
American ads to have higher budgets and standards of production.
Indeed, one informant made a direct comparison between Scottish
and American ads on this basis:
...over there, ofcourse, everything's a lot more glamorous and
they 're spending a lot more money on them [female student 1820]

6SSI Nationality and Negotiation of Advertising Meanings

More commonly, however, informants characterized "American" advertising as direct, aggressive, and intrusive, with ads
"pounding at you ali the time". There were many references to
American ads "slagging off competitors, and telling consumers to
"dial with your Access card and buy!":
American adverts are quite hard sell. They really sort of quite
pressurize you to buy, the guy keeps going on and on... It 'snot
like Europe, [male workers 21-24, mixed]
I like the sort of "buy this or your money back". Allof them are
like that. They'refiinnybut they're not meant to be. But, like,
from watching them here to watching them there, then you can
see the funny side [female workers 18-20]
Indeed, the youngadults often exuded an air of superiority and
condescension In talking about American ads, aligning themselves
with British restraint, subtlety and aversion to blatant commercialism. In one group, someone mentioned that the rules of American
football had been changed to suit the requirements of television
advertisers:
- In America the lobby was so strong that they managed to
change the entire rules ofthe game that had been going for
sixty years. Adverts every ten minutes, not every fifteen!
- Idon't thinkthey would get away wilh ihat in Britain. Weget
exactly half as much advertising in Britain. We get seven
minutes in an hour, in the States it's fourteen
[male
students 21-24]

DISCUSSION
Clearly, the findings presented above relate to a particular
group, situated in a particular time and place. Nonetheless, they
raise some interesting issues for discussion and future research.
Firstly, these findings offer some support for the broader perspective on country-of-origin advocated by Askegaard and Ger (1997).
The young adults clearly considered ads to have a place of origin,
and they were involved in creating images and meanings around
those places of origin. This suggests that advertisers should pay
careful attention to the range of cues which consumers may use to
make inferences about an ad's origins. Given that ads may be seen
as an aspect of a brand's personality (Biel 1990), the perceived
origins of an ad may play a role in influence perceptions about the
brand. This may be of particular interest to advertisers seeking to
overcome negative perceptions associated with a brand's origins,
such as those discussed in the animosity model of foreign product
purchase (Klein et al 1998).
The ease with which informants made sense of a whole range
of cues within the ads, and the critical manner in which they
evaluated these, lends some support to the notion of consumers as
advertising literate. The young adults certainly showed themselves
to be agile and active readers ofadvertising texts (Scott 1994). They
were competent and confident consumers of advertising, and more.
Friestad and Wright (1994) argue that consumers respond to persuasive communications based on their intuitive theories and "folk
knowledge" about persuasion. In this study, the young adults'
discussion of various advertiser objectives, options and budget
restrictions indicates the possession of well-developed "schemer
schema" (Wright 1986) and the ability to adopt the role of surrogate
strategists in their encounters with advertising.
Literacy does not refer to a neutral set of skills, however, but
to how, why, and in what context those skills are applied (Maybin
1993). This perspective is as relevant to advertising as it is to olher

domains of literacy (Ritson and Elliott 1995; O'Donohoe and

Tynan 1998). Consumers are socially and culturally situated individuals seeking to make sense of their lives, identities and relationships, and ads provide symbolic resources to be used for those
purposes. Indeed, Mick and Buhl (1992) suggest that consumers'
negotiation ofadvertising meanings is inevitably intertwined with
their private, family, community and national life themes and
projects. Similarly, McCracken (1987:122)suggests that in looking
at ads, consumers seek "concepts of what it is to be a man or a
woman, concepts of what it is to be middle-aged...[or] a member of
a community or a country".
In this study, the young adults' accounts of "Scottish" and
"English" advertising support the claims by McCracken and Mick
and Buhl that advertising has a role to play in the construction and
maintenance of national identity. This is not to suggest that the
young adults related to all or even most ads as Scots; that would
deny the agility and flexibility of advertising readers able to
"change frames and strategies even within the temporal space ofa
single reading" (Scott 1994:475). Indeed, informants adopted an
almost infinite range of roles in relation to ads and advertising:
sometimes their gender or occupational status was paramount in
negotiating the meaning of ads, but on other occasions they related
to ads as vegetarians, fans of particular celebrities, or film buffs for
example. Furthermore, even in the context of nationality, different
levels of affiliation emerged in this study; relating to some ads as
Scots did not preclude informants from identifying themselves with
"British"or"European"advertisingonotheroccasions. Thisshould
not be surprising: given the pluralism and complexity of identities
in the late twentieth century, it is unrealistic to seek a single carrier
of national identity (McCrone 1992). Even if we accept that
national identity is simply one fragment of the self, it does offer
postmodern consumers one solution to their quest for the social link
(Cova 1997). This study suggests that consumers can draw on the
symbolic resources ofadvertising in the construction of "imagined
communities".

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