International advertising
In this text, we have discussed marketing and advertising planning, advertising creativity, and the advertising media. We have also offered overall advertising perspectives and focused on some special types of advertising, However, most of this discussion has centered on advertising as practiced in the United States and Canada. The question arises, therefore, as to how well such practice applies to advertising in the rest of the world. Companies advertising abroad face a variety of difficulties and opportunities, as we will see in this chapter.
A bit of history will help put the current into perspective. As U.S. companies entered world markets after World War II, consumption of U.S. products grew tremendously. By 1990, U.S. advertising expenditures accounted for 0 billion, or 47 percent of the world total.2 However, in the last 15 years, expenditures by foreign advertisers increased even more rapidly than U.S. expenditures, thanks to improved economic conditions and a desire for expansion. As national economies have expanded and personal incomes have increased, the use of advertising has also increased.
Organizations in every country of the world practice advertising in one form or another. Actual figures are not available, but recent estimates of worldwide advertising expenditures outside the United States exceed 5.6 billion per year, or 53 percent of the worldwide total. The emphasis on advertising in individual countries, though, depends on the country’s level of development and its national attitude toward promotion. Generally, advertising expenditures are higher in countries with higher personal income.
Today, advertising is used worldwide to , policies, and attitudes as well as products. From Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati to Fiat in Turin, Italy, major marketers believe in international advertising, and they back their convictions with sizable advertising budgets. As Exhibit 19-2 shows, the top 10 worldwide advertisers are based in many different countries.
Communist countries, including China, once condemned advertising as an evil of capitalism. But now, with the Soviet Union’s economy broadening to include private enterprise, even the Soviets are starting to admit the benefits of advertising. Although decades of propaganda have conditioned Soviet consumers to distrust or ignore advertising, some Western advertisers are successfully gaining the attention of Soviet citizens by featuring instructional or entertaining fare in ads.4 Ad Lab 19-A (p. 674) discusses how Pepsi has successfully used advertising techniques within the Soviet market.
Certainly, as a communication form, international advertising contributes to the unification of the world. And one benefit is enhanced international understanding as advertisers introduce foreign products, values, and ideas into new markets. As technology and ideologies evolve, international advertising will continue to flourish. As a creative director for Ogiivy & Mather in Paris has said, “Noise n’avons pas mal de budgets,” which can be loosely translated as, “We’re not hurting for business.”
Imagine you are the advertising manager of a U.S. company planning to market its products abroad. You are aware that you may need to use a Advertising different creative strategy in the foreign market. You will be speaking to a new audience with a different value system, a different environment, and probably a different language. Your foreign customers will probably have different , habits, and motivations than the average North American. The media that U.S. and Canadian advertisers generally use may be unavailable or ineffective in foreign markets. And the advertisements may need to be different, too.
You also face another problem. How will you manage and produce the advertising? Will your in-house advertising department do it? Will your domestic advertising agency do it? Or will you have to set up a foreign advertising department or hire a foreign advertising agency?
To answer these questions, we need to ask two more:
How does your company structure its worldwide marketing operations? Within that structure, what are the most economical and effective means to conduct advertising activities?
As we have discussed throughout this text, advertisers set a creative strategy based on the mix of product concept, target audience, communications media, and advertising message. The same holds true in international advertising, except that advertiser often use different creative strategies in foreign markets than they would in the United States and Canada. There are several reasons for this:
Influenced by their own particular environment, foreign markets reflect their local economy, social system, political structure, and degree of technological advancement. Therefore, the advertiser’s target audiences may be different, too.
The media the advertiser uses in domestic markets may not be available, or as effective and economical, in foreign markets. Therefore, the company may need to alter its media strategy.
Foreign consumers may not want to buy, or be able to buy, the same products (or product concepts). They may have different motivations and buying habits. Therefore, the advertiser may need to alter the advertising message and possibly even the product concept.
In this section, we discuss these three Ms of advertising strategy–markets (audiences), media, and messages–and their relationship to international advertising and the products marketed abroad.
Local advertising is referred to as retail advertising because it is commonly performed by retail stores. However, retail advertising is not necessarily local – it can be regional or national as well, as the volume of commercials run by national retail firms such as sears and J.C.Penney. Moreover, many businesses not usually thought of as retail stores use local advertising – real estate brokers, banks, movie theaters, auto mechanics, and TV stations, restaurants, museums, and even funeral homes. Local businesses of all types often use public service or issue advertising.
Businesses in each of these categories have different advertising goes and approaches. Local advertising is very important because most sales are made or lost locally. A national auto manufacturer may spend millions advertising new cars, but its nationwide network of local auto dealers spend just as much or more on a combined basis to bring customers into their showrooms to buy the cars. In fact, if the dealers don’t make a strong effort on the locallevel, the effort of national advertisers may be wasted. So when it comes to consummating the sale, local advertising is where the actions is. The basic principles used by national advertisers are also applicable to local advertising, but local advertisers have special problems that stem from the simple, practical realities of marketing in a local area.]
Public relations (PR) is a term that is widely misunderstood and misused to describe anything from selling to hosting, when in fact it is a very specific communications process. Every company, organization, association, and government or says. They might be employees, customers, stockholders, competitors, suppliers, or Just the general population of consumers
Today, advertising is used worldwide to sell ideas, policies, and attitudes as well as products. From Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati to Fiat in Turin, Italy, major marketers believe in international advertising, and they back their convictions with sizable advertising budgets. As Exhibit 19-2 shows, the top 10 worldwide advertisers are based in many different countries.