Accademic Essey on Effectivness of International Advertising

Introduction

             The selection of  this topic was based on a research which was done recently, moreover it is really interesting topic since the world is coming more and more globalized and similar in ways that were imposible in the past. The internet is taking one of the mose influencial parts in this change, almost everyone is connected with the world, almost every one uses at least a little part of this globalized world, meaning that people all over the world research, look or are hit by information that they did not look for or did not have any interest in. The media and especial the advertising part seems to be changed from useful informative stage to a bombarding stage where people are exposed to tons of new producs, services and pretty much anything that is possible to sell.

A little about the research that is mentioned in the first sentence, the basis idea that draw the attention was that the ads that are done for multi-cultural publics have to be done in a dissimilar way then the once that are local and for quite specific publics.  As the study was progressing many more interesting ideas and questions came up, for instance the music that is being used in ads or the annoying parts that are often seen in television ads, like the unperfected dubbing or the super-quick warnings that are almost impossible to understand.

Comparison of International and Local Advertisements

 Firstly to clarify what is meant by international ads? “International advertising entails dissemination of a commercial message to target audiences in more than one country”1. Usually associated with world widely known companies. For instance the first world wide company that comes up to peoples mind is Coca Cola or McDonald these two fast food associated companies are very well known, for their great marketing accomplishments and people all over the world could come up with at least one of the ads related to these companies. For example almost every one know Coca Colas Christmas Trucks or Coca Colas Santa Clause.

International advertising means also getting over cross cultural differences, which is probably the biggest and possibly the only limit. Cross cultural differences are referring to language, “the issue of a language barrier can occur when advertising hence meaning that if the marketers differ in their languages, then it will be difficult for the international marketing to take place” 2 colors, images and even to numbers, it includes all sorts of differentiation among cultures, publics, audiences, genders, ages, and social statuses.

What does local advertising mean? The ads that are done for specific target audiences, lets say here in Czech Republic mostly by the language even the language barrier has changed amazingly since the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Under local advertisements belong smaller businesses that are operating with specific target audience, for instance the newspaper, magazines and this kind of media. Or Kofola (a drink that is similar to Coca Cola but it has specific taste)

 which is very popular in Czech Rep. The advertisements are usually taking place at specifically portrayed scenes and all of the ads have this Czech Culture in it, these ads would not work in other countries, for instance the US.

So the main question is what is more effective? International or Local Ads?

It is a question that cannot be answered simply, it is a question that has to be much more specified, and it really depends on the cross-cultural differences. Another aspect, which influences the answer, is the over all image that the company has built. But on the other side international ads have huge advantage, since they are globally applied and usually very quickly recognized. More to the topic for instance people immediately recognize international music hits in TV or in Radio ads, they usually drag the attention much faster than to some local music. And event in the survey that was done here in Prague shows that the outcome was aiming more towards international advertisements then local ones.

Conclusion

The international advertising is changing much faster then in the past, the world is uniting by the language and even the cultural differences are changing. It is not wrong to say that a company with the intentions of is going internationally has much better and faster chance of succeeding than a small local company that is staying with specific target audience. “So with the continuous advertising of the products you will have the consumers which will be familiar with the product hence leading to huge profits by the company.”3

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1 Douglas Susan and Craig Samuel,
 International Advertising

, New York University
 Stern School of Business Section 5.2, Article 31



2 Grey, A 2004, “every market needs a different message”, IABC Communication World.

3 Albers-Miller, N 2001, designing cross-cultural advertising research: A closer look at paired comparisons. Journal of international marketing review Vol. 13(5)