ABSTRACT
There are many ways to look at advertising: as a business, as a creative process, as a social phenomenon, and as a fundamental ingredient of everyday life. Advertisements are artifacts of material culture and they play a very important role in building and changing it. Similarly, culture is a powerful component of advertising. It affects the effectiveness of every single ad or commercial, and determines their success or failure. Modern marketers are well aware of the power a little ad may have over a consumer's mind. Thus, printed advertisements, radio spots or TV commercials are masterpieces thoughtfully created and placed in order to influence consumers. Where nudity is relevant to the product, people are less likely to regard it as obscene or offensive. However, in a very conservative country like Poland, even in such instances it evokes controversies, as it happened in July 1996 with a commercial for Denim Kult after-shave.
