Global advertising may be defined as messages whose art, copy, headlines photographs, taglines, and other elements have been developed explicitly for worldwide suitability.
A standardized ad campaign requires a key message, delivered to the target audience, that must resonate across countries and cultures.
Here are a few Examples:
- Nike (“Just do it”)
- McDonalds (“I’m lovin’ it”)
- IBM (“solutions for a small planet”)
- De Beers (“A diamond is forever”)
- BP (“Beyond Petroleum”)
- Vodafone (“your voice”)
Choosing the Key Message
Unique Selling Proposition (USP): What is your “core product” – main values, benefits, functions promised by your product? What is the brand’s story that you have been telling/want to tell the World?
- Red Bull – Gives You Wings
- Nike – Just Do It
- TNT – We Know Drama
- State Farm Insurance – Like a good neighbour, State Farm is here.
Related: Advertising: Tool of the Communication Mix
Global Ad Campaigns: Examples
Key feature of a Global Advertising campaign: A standardized ad campaign requires a key message, delivered to the target audience, that must resonate across countries and cultures.
Phillip Morris Marlboro Campaign: One of the First Examples of a Global Ad Campaign
Marlboro’s success as a leading brand began in the 1950’s when the brand was repositioned to ensure smokers of the unchanged flavour and masculinity of the filtered product.
The theme “Come to where the flavour is. Come to Marlboro country” became an immediate success in the United States and abroad.
Dove’s “Real Beauty” – “the video first launched in four key markets: the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Australia. It was then rolled out abroad, and uploaded in 25 languages and seen in 110 countries.”
Global versus Local Advertising
Global versus Local Advertising or the Standardization versus Adaptation Debate in Advertising.
An important question facing international firms is whether to standardize or adapt advertising across the national markets. Today, standardized campaigns have increased over the years with several MNCs employing extensive or total standardization.
Related: Sandardisation vs Adaptation (Glocalization) in International Marketing
Driving Factors of Standardization of Ad Campaigns
Cost Savings
Individual campaigns in many countries lead to duplicate costs such as those for photographs, layouts, and the production of television commercials. In a standardized approach these production costs can be reduced, and more funds can be spend on purchasing media space.
Branding
Many companies market products under a single brand name globally or regionally. Different local campaigns can confuse a global brand image.
H.J. Heinz developed a global campaign for Heinz Ketchup to develop consistency in the brand image and advertising across its various national markets.
Target Market
Narrowly defined target markets call for more standardized campaigns.
Pringles is one of P&G’s top three global brands and is sold in several countries over the world. P&G attributes the global success of Pringles to a uniform advertising message aimed to young children and teens.
Limiting Factors of Standardization of Ad Campaigns
Ads based on Stage in Product Life Cycle
Its possible that products of a firm may be at different stages of their product life cycles in different countries. As a result, different types of advertising may be necessary to take into account various levels of customer awareness.
Typically a campaign during the earlier stages of the product life cycle concentrates on familiarizing people with the product category.
In later stages with more intense competition, campaigns tend to shift towards emphasising the product’s advantages over competitor’s products.
Example: P&G entered the Chinese market with a shampoo brand. First, P&G employed utilitarian ads such as ones that showed consumers the right way to wash their hair. As consumers became more sophisticated and needed less instruction, P&G changed the focus of their advertisements from instruction to evoking positive emotions toward their products.
Regulatory Environment
In many instances, the particular regulations of a country prevent firms from using standardized approaches to advertising even when these would appear desirable.
- Malaysia, a country with large Muslim population may prohibit ads showing woman in sleeveless dresses and pictures showing underarms.
- In China, advertising is subjected to substantial scrutiny and regulation. All outdoor ads have to be proved by multiple government organizations.
- Russian law forbids ads that advocate violence and cruelty.
- In many countries, prescibed drugs cannot be advertised to the public and are usually promoted directly to doctors, pharmacies etc.
Self-Regulatory Organizations for Advertising:
- The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA): ‘Independent’ (funded by advertising Industry) regulatory body to make sure ads broadcasted in UK follows advertising codes. Receives complaints, monitors the ads, and does public research.
- The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP): The organization responsible for writing the advertising codes. Consists of advertising agents, specialists, media owners to determine the standards. Also, gives advice and training on how to create campaigns that fit the rules.
Cultural Differences
Cultural differences can also restrict the use of standardized advertising.
- Taco Bell found that Gidget, the talking Chihuahua dog, used in ads in the United States, could not be used in Asia.
- A Western food company wanted to introduce bouillon cubes to Romania via ads featuring a family gathering around the dinner table. The campaign had to be changed because Romanian consumers were not familiar with the family dinner concept.
- Jennifer Lope’z perfume ad in Elle Middle East featured the star’s face instead of her curvy figure in the original version in consideration of the regional sensitivities.
(Gillespie and Hennessey, 2016)
The Standardization-Adaptation Debate
The Standardization-Adaptation Debate – Glocal Approach in Advertising.
Local/global debate does not necessarily have to be framed as an either/or proposition. Rather, marketers should understand global and local tendencies at the same time (glocal approach).
A global company can do both:
- It may use a single-country advertising in addition to campaigns that are regional or global in scope.
- It may embrace a technique known as pattern advertising.
This is a middle ground between 100% standardization and 100% adaptation.
- Develop a pan-regional / global communication concept & adapt copy, artwork, or other elements as required for each market (e.g., use the same design but localize visual elements on print ads.
Global Theme Approach – Pattern Advertising
‘Global Theme Approach’ as one Form of Pattern Advertising.
A company uses the same advertising theme around the world but it is varied slightly with each local execution.
Coke’s global campaign featuring “Coke Moments” was developed and shot in a number of the brand’s markets, including Brazil, Germany, Italy, France, and South Africa as well as in the United States.
Related: Marketing communications: Promotion P of the marketing mix.
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