1.2 Significance of the Study
     The advertisement culture has captured both public and academic attentions. The main reason for this is the advertisement culture has penetrated into different areas of modern society. On the other hand, the knowledge economy has greatly influenced social development; the innovation is the source of knowledge economy and the culture is the foundation of innovation, so the culture is crucial to knowledge economy. Basing on its significance, people begin take the culture as a productivity and predict that the age of cultural society has come. As a result, the research on advertisement culture has become an urgent topic; it possesses the academic value.
 2 Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Culture
   In a long period, when people have used the concept of “culture”, the intention and extension it represents differ a lot. So culture has been defined from a broad sense and a narrow sense. The culture in broad sense emphasizes the essential difference between humans and animals, emphasizing human’s unique living style which make them eminent in nature; since it covers a wide range, people sometimes call it big culture. The big culture is a concept containing all the human’s creatures, so scholars have pided its extension according to different standards. Some people pide it into material culture and non-material culture and subpide the non-material culture into system and spirit; some people pide culture into six subsystems: material, social relation, spirit, art, language symbol and custom (Zhang, 2003).
    In a narrow sense, culture focused on the spiritual creative activities and their result in human’s evolution history and excluded the material creative activities and their result; so the culture in narrow sense is called “small culture” as well. Compared with culture in a broad sense, the intension and extension of concept of culture in narrow sense has been dwindled. Although scholars still haven’t reached a consensus of the intension and extension of the concept of culture, most scholars have seen culture as spirits and concepts and their corresponding behavior standards. In summary, culture is a multivariate function, different people have different explanations.
   This paper has adopted the definition of culture proposed by Zhang (2003). Zhang thinks culture has four layers. The first layer is material culture layer; it contains the various articles being possessed by human from natural raw materials. The second layer is the system culture layer; it contains the various social standards and social organization which were established by human in their social practice. The third layer is the behavior culture layer; it means the different customs in human’s communication. The forth is the mentality culture layer; it contains human’s morality, values, aesthetic, thinking mode and philosophy which were formed in human’s long history of social practice and consciousness activities. The mentality culture layer is the essence and core part of culture, so this paper will analyze the advertisement from the aspect of mentality culture layer.
2.2 Influences of Advertisements
2.2.1 Influence on People’s Consumption Culture
Consumption culture means the unique consumption concept which is formed under the influence of advertisement. Consumption culture has been the most salient characteristic of modern society; famous director Zhang Yimou has once said, “the glamour of consumption culture is irresistible; it has been accepted by people readily, especially by adolescents.” The consumption culture is a culture aims to promote the sales of product; it can activate people’s consuming passion and then promote their purchase. In the circulation of consumption culture, the advertisement has played an important role because consumers largely depends on advertisement to acquire the information of commodity they need and then make choices, such as its function, constituent, characteristics, application, price, manufacturer, usage and the after-sale service (Kay, 1998). As we call see, advertisement will promote the consumption culture by offering sufficient information about commodity to consumers. 中西方广告中体现的文化差异集体主题和个人主义(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_23965.html