Finding Ourselves in Images: A Cultural Reading of Trans-Tasman Identities

This paper explores salient ideas, metaphors, and meanings embedded in representations of New Zealand, Australian, and trans-Tasman cultural identities. The discussion is grounded in the examination of New Zealand and Australian beer, car, and convenience food advertisements. The study was carried out jointly by U.S. consumer research anthropologists and Australian and New Zealand advertising professionals. We explore what crosses the Tasman, and doesn't - in icons of identity and ideas about nature and gender. We suggest that advertisements are revealing cultural texts that, when analyzed, expose socially constructed 'truths' that can in turn be leveraged, contested, and altered by consumers. Finding Ourselves in Images: A Cultural Reading of Trans-Tasman Identities [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]