§16§This study addresses the standardization and adaptation of advertising campaigns in the context of the auto industry and their televised campaigns in America and Germany. It sets out to investigate how lacuna theory can be used to show that advertisements reflect a specific cultural communication and they are interpreted by a specific cultural understanding. Lacuna theory will be used to discover the perceptions of auto commercials by Germans and Americans to discover if differences in cultural communication and cultural understanding exist in advertising creative strategies. The study will find out how these differences, if present, can be identified and understood so that advertising creatives can begin to either implement standardized commercials that are functional for the auto industry in Germany and America or else adapt their campaigns to better target consumers in each country. §04§Contents: International Advertising - German Advertising - American Advertising - Cultural Differences in Advertising - Lacuna Theory. §02§The Author: Erika Grodzki was born in 1971 in West Virginia, USA. She studied English Literature and Speech Communication at Muskingum College (B.A.). Grodzki spent her junior year of college at the Scuola Administrazione Aziendale in Torino, Italy. She later went on for her Masters in Mass Communications at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Upon completing her Masters degree, Grodzki traveled to Germany to begin her doctoral work at the Europa Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. Grodzki completed her degree in Kulturwissenschaft (2001) and currently serves as an Assistant Professor of International Communication at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.
