Why More Companies do not Standardize Advertising Messages Worldwide
Business has become highly internationalized in the last decades. This swift development has been triggered by technological advancement, liberalization of trade strategies, and escalated international competition. Advertising denotes paid communication that uses mass media to persuade or influence an audience (Elina 2). Advertising is one of the essential tools when communicating with an international audience. Standardization of advertising messages means employment of the same message for each market a firm enters with just few changes or simply translating the information into another language. The discussion on standardization has concentrated on whether firms should standardize the advertising messages. When selecting an advertising strategy, corporations should not only consider the reasons of standardization but also various elements affecting the advertising policies, which are beyond the advantages of standardization.
Firms expand into global markets driven by the likelihood to grow, as well as the need to survive. Many organizations are compelled to advertise their products internationally since they experience global competition, and their products are demanded globally. International marketing happens across borders; thus, an international marketer should manage new environments and obstacles emanating from societal, legal, and cultural differences in the different markets (Elina 1). A coherent approach should be developed for all advertising activities, and companies managers should decide whether to compete with standardized advertising communication or not.
Market conditions vary from nation to nation, company to company, and product to product. Besides, a campaign can be effective in one state but disastrous in another, which shows that different types of influencing factors need to be considered when an advertising approach is developed (Elina 4). In the current global marketplace, it is essential to communicate with individuals from different nations. The development and expansion of firms to other nations, as well as the many countries’ economies being entwined, call for enhanced communication. Consequently, the latest technology has advanced to offer new chances for improved communication, which has profited the advertising sector globally (Schmidt 79). The enhanced means of communication, for example, the internet and social media, enable advertisers to easily reach their preferred target audience within every geographic market.
The standardized advertising theory is founded on the assumption that individuals across the world have similar tastes and desires. Hence advertising messages with just few alterations and the accurate translation can be utilized to reach customers globally. The motive is that consumers all over the world have similar needs, and therefore, the advertising campaign may positively influence them. Moreover, supporters of standardization often stress the trend towards homogenization of world markets (Elina 6). The benefits of standardization include cost savings from economies of scale, the chances of gaining experience and knowledge from different nations, and consistent brand image (Melewar and Vemmervik 863).
Advertisers are anticipated to spend much money on advertising and hence the question that arises is whether advertisements for international products or firms should be standardized (Wang and Yang 25). Environmental factors determine how thriving firms operate overseas. For instance, organizations in Western Europe mostly operate in developed countries that have intact infrastructures and abundant advertising support devices (Kaynak and Hassan 197). However, corporations that exist in Asia are in newly industrialized nations where advertising factors are not advanced. Thus, the regions where firms operate determine their effectiveness. The following environmental constraints act as barriers to the development and implementation of standardized global advertising campaigns.
Social Cultural Differences
International advertising is a process that brings a product to the global market and should be a complex and well organized to create and communicate an idea to various cultures. Companies should be cautious when going international and should not underrate the influence of culture on their advertising campaigns (Athapaththu 179). Organizations should understand, tolerate, and accept cultural differences in target audiences in different nations. Various market segments or targeted audiences can have their set of needs, desire, wants, and tastes. Thus, all these elements should be examined when planning for advertising. The potential consumers should be addressed by considering “Cultural meaning perspective,” which refers to a specific strategy to a specific culture.
Each country has a different culture and therefore needs a different strategy. A technique that is effective for one state may not be in another; thus, the right approaches and tools should be employed to prevent failure. A firm can succeed by managing the cultural environment and global corporations. The challenge that arises from cultural diversity is not knowing about different cultures as many firms do not clearly understand cultures across the world.
Cultural diversity creates obstacles as companies normally overgeneralize methods and tactics. Individuals believe that effective marketing strategies may be applied to many nations, which usually results in failure. For example, if a commodity has a naked picture on the package, it can be accepted in the western states but is condemned in Muslim society. Therefore, corporations should adapt well to the local markets if they wish to succeed.
Culture is a difficult issue for the majority of the advertisers as it is inherently indefinite and usually hard to comprehend. A company can violate another nation’s cultural norms unknowingly, and individuals from different cultures may be uncomfortable in each other’s presence without understanding the exact reason. Communication is also difficult since cultural factors greatly influence the way numerous phenomena are discerned. For example, the perception of a message varies if the perceptual framework is different. A country’s culture influences the consumers’ preferences, and customers are sensitive about cultural elements portrayed in advertisements.
Though cultural differences are hard to measure, there are various cultural universals (elements common to all cultures) where certain items of culture are widely acknowledged as vital components of culture. These elements include different languages and dialects, religious differences, and ethnic groups or races (Kaynak and Hassan 198). The cultural elements that each company should consider when moving to international markets include values, beliefs, religion, symbols, thoughts, processes, and traditions (Athapaththu 180). Individuals are not born with a culture but are born into a society where they can learn and develop particular cultural traits, faith, and beliefs (Tantawy and George 248). Thus, culture greatly influences people’s lives from birth to death. The perspective nature of a culture is crucial to an advertiser, and they should focus on it.
An advertising firm should not imagine that individuals cannot worry about their cultures due to the advertisement of a commodity that simplifies their lives. All cultural elements should be considered when developing an advertisement as sometimes the message might communicate an idea not intended (Meyer and Bernier 8). For instance, if a man and a woman stand too close to each other in an advertisement, it might unintentionally convey something sexual to a community. The body language can have different messages from nation to nation. Thus, a native’s acknowledgement of the message is crucial otherwise unanticipated results might arise.
Advertising should convince clients that the characteristics of a product or service satisfy consumer needs and wants. The advertisement message is supposed to coincide with every cultural norm. Thus, companies consult marketing specialists to create global advertising campaigns to ensure the attainment of the organizational objective and adjust them according to the market place. An effective advertising strategy should connect all the cultures, which include local and international cultures, business, social, and political cultures. Any factor emanating from cultural differences should also not be ignored (Athapaththu 179). An advertising approach that disregards cultural differences might make a business to collapse. Aspects of culture, such as religion, attitudes, social conditions, and education, influence the way people view their environment and understand signals and symbols. For instance, the employment of color in advertising should consider cultural norms. Many Asian nations associate white with grief (Svend and Oliver 373). Therefore, a commercial for a detergent where whiteness is stressed would have to be changed for marketing activities in India.
Economic Conditions
Unlike industrialized nations, the developing states may have radios but lack television sets, which can hinder the development and implementation of standardized global advertising campaigns (Svend and Oliver 373). Moreover, written communication may not be as successful as visual or oral communication in developing countries.
Legal and Regulatory Conditions
Local advertising rules and industry codes directly affect the choice of media and content of promotion material. Various governments have strict rules on content, language, and sexism in advertising (Svend and Oliver 374). Besides, the kind of product that can be advertised is regulated. For instance, tobacco products and alcoholic beverages are the excessively regulated commodities with regard to advertising. Regulations exist more in industrialized nations than in developing countries where the advertising sector is not advanced.
An advertiser should keenly observe a nation’s legal system to successfully organize the advertising campaign. Thus, one should consult professional legal consultants to acquire adequate legal knowledge regarding the state’s legal system prior to entering into the nation (Athapaththu 179). Besides, an advertiser should learn about the advertising of certain commodities and the countries’ prohibitions on advertising products. For instance, pharmaceuticals advertisements are banned in many nations. Because laws controlling the comparative advertisements vary from one nation to another, only a few of the nations utilize it to subvert rivals (Athapaththu 180). Some nations limit foreign countries’ access to the media, and this measure causes major challenges to the international advertising. Hence, such a complex set of rules of a country’s legal system should be deeply observed to avoid unnecessary situations on advertising campaigns.
Competition
Since competitors differ from nation to nation with regard to number, type, size, and promotional approaches employed, an organization can be forced to adapt its promotional tactic and the timing of its efforts to the local environment.
Media Obstacles
Media can weaken the function of advertising in the promotional plan and may compel marketers to stress the other elements of the promotional mix. For example, when a television advert is restricted to few showings a year with no two exposures closer than 10 days, a marketer’s creativity becomes challenged. Media-related restrictions normally hinder companies from offering standardized campaigns. For instance, in Germany, commercial television advertising is restricted to 20 minutes per day in blocks of 5 to 7 minutes between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. (Kaynak and Hassan 198). Besides, advertising-specific guidelines also influence multinational advertising firms as the regulations endeavor to safeguard consumers from deceptive advertising or shield advertisers from unjust competitive practices (Kaynak and Hassan 199). This factor is more common in developed countries than in developing nations where controls are well established.
Although global media exists, markets experience local media limitations, which are unique to each market. The media limitation challenge can be just perceived as the lack of quality materials for printing advertising messages, or it can become more serious, for example, the absence of printing presses or media stations. Media landscapes in global markets may cause other forms of messaging to be employed such as the public showing of movies (Athapaththu 180). In several developed nations such as America, various free media exist. Thus, advertisers can use them to spread their messages to the target audience. Intensified corporate competition forces firms to influence clients’ choices towards their own products and services. Thus, organizations spend millions and billions of dollars on advertising to attract customers. Because of the huge expenditures, corporations also desire massive returns.
Media firms greatly rely on advertising as they can obtain more money through advertising than licenses and public funding. Hence, advertisers can influence media companies to market them well and reward them for that. In most countries, the media exist on prohibitive costs (Athapaththu 180). Thus, the advertiser’s creativity is required to win the clients’ hearts and minds. If a particular geographical territory has different ethnic groups with numerous language and religions, the cost rises since the advertisement should match each group or else it should be universal such that all people can relate to the same representation, which is difficult in most cases.
Education Level
The literacy level influences the decision of the advertisement tool and message to be utilized in the international market. The market segments having a lower level of adult literacy should be addressed using more audiovisual content than a written message. The visuals should also be properly designed to pass the intended message instead of the text section of the advertisement.
Language Barriers
Advertising companies should tackle language barriers to prevent failures in global marketing processes. Language is people’s identity as it assists them in expressing feelings, conveying complex emotions, sharing knowledge, and telling stories (Athapaththu 179). It is a system of symbols that individuals can employ to communicate with one other. Thus, the best mediators help individuals to connect and understand each other. An advertiser is supposed to understand the meanings of the idioms, jokes, related technological terms, slang, and innuendos to formulate the advertising in a different nation (Athapaththu 179). Besides, the advertiser needs to be a native speaker of a nation who comprehends the listed elements. However, at times even a native speaker may not understand the meanings of dialects that may have many differences from one geographical region to another or cast groups (Athapaththu 179). Undesirable circumstances may arise when encoding and decoding an idea between two persons who speak two different languages. Some words may also have meanings not certainly implied. Thus, advertisers should comprehend the unspoken meanings or understandings that particular terms mean or do not mean.
A nation’s literacy level may also present challenges to advertisers. For instance, only 50% of India’s population can reach to a paper advertisement (Athapaththu 179). Therefore, companies have to develop effective strategies for reaching the remaining group. Every advertisement made endeavors to persuade customers to purchase a product or service. This impact should be duplicated when the advertisement is interpreted to persuade new clients who speak a different language to purchase the product repeatedly.
Conclusion
Different markets imply different choices, and selling a unified commodity lacks uniqueness. This factor makes competitors to gain market share by adjusting their products to fulfill the needs of a specific segment. Markets have different needs and tastes and therefore employing the standardized strategy puts firms in a weak position. Although marketers have considerable power over various factors that affect their market effectiveness, numerous external factors are beyond the marketing managers’ control. Such factors should be identified by managers and regarded in every aspect of their marketing tactics. The environment within which the marketing plan should be executed distinguishes domestic markets from global markets. The standardization guidelines keep changing, and the present trend is towards increasing the practice. However, the utilization and the extent of standardization still differ among multinationals. Since a dominant trend towards standardization exists, the subject of whether a firm should standardize its advertising messages may be reformulated to determine how organizations standardize their advertisements.