Abstract：Advertising is not only a product of economy, but also of culture. Since different areas or countries have their special cultures, the advertisings produced in different cultural backgrounds may be characterized by their own cultural features. Due to the fact that there are great differences between Chinese and American advertisings, especially sexual advertisings, advertisers should take target markets’ cultural features into account, so as to create effective advertisings that can be accepted by the local people.

　　　This thesis aims to address the issues of how different attitudes people from different countries have toward sexual advertising and the underlying reasons for it by looking into their different cultural backgrounds and recent research, analyzing some specific cases of “sexual advertising” in Chinese and American advertising field for the purpose of comparing the cultural differences between Chinese and American people. Then, the dissertation provides advertisers who would like to penetrate the world market with some useful suggestions.

Key Words: sexual advertising; Advertising ethics; cultural differences

中文摘要：广告既是一种经济发展的产物，也是一种文化的产物。由于不同的地区和国家有各自的文化特色，不同文化中的广告也各自具有本地区或国家的特点。鉴于中美两国广告，特别是性感广告存在着巨大差异，广告撰稿人在创作广告的时候应该把目标市场的文化因素纳入考虑的范畴，以便制作出为当地人们所接受的有效广告。

　　　本文旨在通过研究文献综述来论述来自中美两国人们对性感广告有着怎样不同认识，以及通过分析中美两国具体的“性感广告”案例来探讨其潜在的原因，进而为想要成功打入国际市场的广告撰稿人提供一些有益的启示和帮助。

关键词：性感广告； 广告伦理；文化差异