The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications: ©SAGE Publications
The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications: ©SAGE Publications
The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications: ©SAGE Publications
The Paradoxes in
Global Marketing
Communications
I n a meeting between the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon after the battle of
Waterloo, Wellington is said to have reproached Napoleon with the words “You
fight for power, we fight for honor,” and Napoleon is said to have answered,
“Yes, one always fights for what one does not have.”
The two had fought with different approaches to the battlefield. Wellington was
a military leader and saw himself as an agent of the British government. Napoleon’s
perspective was that of a head of state in pursuit of glory.1 To some, honor comes
with the function, and one doesn’t have to fight for it, and true honor is public
esteem or glory. For others, honor is faithful performance of duty. Again, for others,
honor is inner integrity. There are as many different kinds of honor as social
groups.2
What seems paradoxical is that in some nations, one has to fight for some-
thing that in other nations is inherent in the function or the person. Skills that
come automatically in one part of the world have to be learned in another part
of the world. Leadership is a concept that comes automatically to the French:
You have it or you don’t. There is no proper word for leadership in either the
French or the Spanish languages. In the United States, leadership is an integral
part of primary education; children in elementary schools take turns being class
leader for the day and may be publicly honored for their efforts. U.S. leaders are
the heroes of capitalism; they are admired, whether they succeed or fail. Japanese
leaders are faceless.
Advertising often appeals to what is lacking in society. The happy family is more
often depicted in advertising in nations where family coherence is lacking. In coun-
tries where family is part of one’s identity, advertising focuses less on family values.
Family is like air: You don’t have to pay attention to it.
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In global marketing, “think global, act local” is a paradox. Thinking and behav-
ior are equally influenced by culture. Someone who thinks globally is still a product
of his or her own culture. Watching young people worldwide drinking Coca-Cola
or wearing jeans may lead some to conclude that they are becoming the same, but
there is ample evidence that to consumers, the local is more meaningful than the
global. Global marketers suggest a global youth segment with homogeneous
desires. However, when global youth cultural styles are readily available, a localized
version of youth culture emerges.3
The Internet is the ultimate example of global communication. In particular, the
Internet is assumed to cross cultural barriers.4 Yet, in the short time of its existence,
it has become very local as people in different countries use it in different ways and
in different languages. The technology needed for computers to communicate with
other computers was invented by the American defense research agency. The Inter-
net as we use it now was invented by a British computer scientist and developed in
the English language world, but in 2008, most weblogs were not in English but in
the Japanese language.5 Already in 2005, a relatively high level of localization of
websites for global brands of U.S. origin was reported.6
Globalization has not produced globally uniform consumers. Although there is
a worldwide convergence of technology, media, and financial systems, desires and
behaviors of consumers are not converging.
These are examples of paradoxical aspects that marketing and advertising man-
agers have to understand when they enter the global marketplace.
This chapter introduces the concept of the value paradox, discusses a few global
marketing paradoxes, and summarizes assumed effects of globalization, such as
convergence of consumer behavior. Finally, because of the continuing debate on
standardizing or adapting global marketing, branding, and advertising strategy,
a short history of that dialogue is provided discussing the various aspects of
standardization-adaptation decisions.
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Chapter 1 The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications ——3
by new ways. Whereas in the West, the old must be discarded and the new must
be embraced, in much of Asia, the traditional is exploited, recycled into modern
ways of life.
Paradoxical values are found within cultures and between cultures. Every culture
has its opposing values. Equality is an American core value, yet in the United States,
there is a wide gap between rich and poor. What is confusing in the global market-
place is that certain opposing values of one culture also exist in other cultures but
in reverse. An example is the individual freedom-belonging paradox. Individualism
is a strong element of American society, and so is the need to belong. It seems par-
adoxical that both freedom and belonging are strong values of a single culture. The
explanation is that in an individualistic society where people want to “do things
their own way” and “go it alone,” people tend to become lonely if they don’t make
an effort to belong. The reverse is found in Japan, where belonging is an integral
part of society, and it takes an effort to behave in an individualistic way. According
to the American Society of Association Executives in Washington, D.C., in 1995,
there were some 100,000 associations and clubs in the United States. Seven of every
10 Americans belong to at least one club.7 There is no such phenomenon in Japan.
It is said that social media like Facebook facilitate making friends. However,
according to Dr. John Cacioppo, in the United States, Facebook increases feelings
of loneliness. In other parts of the world, for example, in Asia and Africa, social
media reinforce community feelings.8
These are examples of what I call the value paradox. Paradoxes are statements that
seem contradictory but are actually true. Understanding these paradoxes is basic to
understanding the consequences of culture for global communications, branding,
and advertising. More about the value paradox can be found in Chapter 3.
The way people think and perceive is guided by the framework of their own culture.
People are inclined to see similarities from the framework of their own culture.
These similarities are often pseudo-similarities. They are based on what people
want to see, not on what is actually there. Perception of the phenomenon of
Japanese individuality as a sign of Westernization of the Japanese is an example of
such a misperception.
The global-local paradox is that the more people know about other countries
and cultures, the more they become aware of their own cultural or national identity.
Along with unification of the different European nations, when citizens of the var-
ious nations learned more about each other, symbols and appeals in advertising
became more nationally oriented.9
Along with globalization, people increasingly prefer local music. At the beginning
of the 21st century in the United States, 93% of music sold was by local artists. In
Japan, it was 74% and across Europe more than 50%.10 In 2008, most young people
said their favorite singers were local. In China, the most popular singer was Jay Chou;
in India, it was Himesh Reshammiya; in Australia, it was Fall Out Boy; and in Taiwan,
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it was Jolin Tsai.11 Marketing knowledge has spread across the world, but its use has
supported localization of products and services rather than standardization.12
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Chapter 1 The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications ——5
A much discussed topic in global marketing and advertising is the choice between
global and local, reaping the economic benefits of standardized production or
accommodating local consumer needs and habits for greater effectiveness. The par-
adoxical aspect is that all marketers have learned that markets are people, which
should translate into a local approach, but when companies go global, they are
production driven. They talk about products, brands, and markets, not about people.
There may be global products, but there are no global people. There may be global
brands, but there are no global motivations for buying those brands.
The Sony Walkman is often used as an example of a global product, developed
for global consumers with global needs, who would use it with similar motives.
That is not true: There are two distinctly different motives for using that product.
In the Western world, the motive is to enjoy music without being disturbed by
others. This was not the motive for Masaru Ibuka—cofounder with Akio Morita of
the Sony Corporation—for inventing the Walkman. He wanted to listen to music
without disturbing others.14
Advertisers take great pains to try to understand certain subcultures, such as
youth culture, knowing that they can appeal to the young only if they address them
in the right way. When it comes to addressing adult women or men of different
national cultures with very different value systems, many advertisers suddenly
think one standard message is sufficient. This is paradoxical behavior.
The decision to standardize has more to do with corporate culture than with
the culture of markets and nations. Many global advertisers are not market ori-
ented; they are product oriented. They search for that one universal great idea to
sell their one standard product to assumed universal, global consumers. This is
demonstrated by the fact that cost saving is most often mentioned as argument for
standardization. In reality, the cost of developing one standard idea that truly
crosses borders is very high. To get consensus about a “great idea,” product man-
agers, marketing managers, country managers, advertising managers, account
supervisors, account directors, and creative directors of advertising agencies and
the like in various countries have to get together, organizing meetings and travel.
Then, in the end, it appears that many adaptations are needed. Voice-overs or
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subtitles have to be made, pack shots must be changed, and texts have to be trans-
lated, adapted, or rewritten. Slogans developed for global use have to be translated,
and in the end, some translations appear to include subtle changes of meaning
influenced by culture.
People of different countries speak different languages, and those languages
represent different worldviews. Translations do not uncover the different world-
views, different ways of thinking, and different intellectual styles. International
advertising consultant Simon Anholt15 says, “Translating advertising copy is like
painting the tip of an iceberg and hoping the whole thing will turn red.” Advertising
is more than words; it is made of culture.
Globalization
Globalization in the broadest sense is defined by Robertson as “the concrete
structuration of the world as a whole”17 The term globalization is used to cover
the global flow of capital, technology, and media, as well as changes in human
behavior that are expected to result from globalization forces. The level of
world trade is much higher than ever before and involves a much wider range
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Chapter 1 The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications ——7
of goods and services than it used to in the past. The biggest change, however,
is in the level of finance and capital flows.18
Global communication refers to the flow of information, communication, com-
munication products, media, and technology worldwide. Next to the term global,
the term international is used that strictly taken refers to communication between
nations and between members of nations. There are many assumptions about the
effects of global communications that rarely have been substantiated. Global media
and advertising are expected to mould consumers into one global consumer cul-
ture. The Internet is viewed as the ultimate globalization tool, but defining the
Internet as global in its usage is dangerous. Increasingly, all sorts of software are
localized. Some social networks may be global services, but they are mostly used to
connect to people already known in local communities.
The globalization discourse in marketing is dominated by Anglo-Saxon authors.
As a result, many of the most visible expressions mentioned as examples are Coca-
Cola, McDonald’s, or Starbuck’s. Especially in the 1980s when the globalization
discussion started, the U.S. penetration of global markets was particularly aggres-
sive and visible, writes Harvard professor John Quelch.19 As a result, some view
globalization as Americanization.
The success of global brands has led some writers to predict an inevitable colo-
nization of world cultures by international corporate brands that would lead to the
demise of local cultures. However, there also is evidence that social relationships
and values in local cultures are relatively resistant to the assumed erosive effects of
globalization. Ethnographic studies of mobile phone use in South Korea and of
MTV in East Asia found that proliferation of global products and services in East
Asia, instead of destroying local cultures, reinforced and reinvented moral values in
local communities.20 This is the paradoxical aspect of globalization at which Gid-
dens21 points, when he defines globalization as “a complex set of processes that
operate in a contradictory or oppositional fashion.” On the one hand, globalization
is expected to destroy local cultures; on the other hand, it is the reason for the
revival of local cultural identities in different parts of the world.
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parts of the world. The idea is not new, and, not specifically American. Already in
1958, the Italian Stefano Bakonyi24 wrote about divergence and convergence in
culture and communication and stated that the vigorous expansion on the part of
Western culture had carried Western emotional values and concepts to the far cor-
ners of the globe and had also made them a common treasury of non-Western
cultural communities. But he also warned that the process would not go on without
inducing a counter-expansion of non-Western values and concepts, in particular
those of the potent sleeping cultures of India and China. This is indeed happening
in the 21st century, now that China and India have become important players in
world markets.
In the developed world, countries have economically converged to the extent
that the majority of people have enough to eat and have additional income to invest
in new technology and other durable goods. Countries may be similar with respect
to penetration of such goods, but not with respect to what people do with them or
the motives for buying them. Technology has not brought a global village in which
global consumers behave in the same way.
When the Canadian media philosopher Marshall McLuhan25 coined the concept
of the global village, he was referring to Plato’s definition of the proper size for a
city—the number of people who could hear the voice of the public speaker. By the
global village, McLuhan meant that the new electric media of his time, such as
telephone and television, abolished the spatial dimension. By means of electricity,
people everywhere could resume person-to-person relations, as if on the smallest
village scale. Thus, McLuhan viewed the electronic media as extensions of human
beings. They enhance people’s activities; they do not change people. If you assume
people are the same everywhere, global media extend homogeneity. If you realize
that people are different, extensions reinforce the differences. McLuhan did not
include cultural convergence in the concept of the global village. In fact, he said the
opposite—that uniqueness and diversity could be fostered under electronic condi-
tions as never before.
This is exactly what new technology has accomplished. People have embraced
it to enhance current activities. In the cold climates where people used to pre-
serve food in the snow, they have embraced deep-freeze technology most
intensely. The colder the climate, the more deep freezers. Initially, the mobile
phone penetrated fastest in countries that already had advanced fixed telecom-
munications infrastructures, but after that initial stage, it penetrated most
intensely in cultures where interpersonal communication is more important
than written communication. The World Bank publishes data from the Interna-
tional Telecommunication Union (ITU)26 that show that the numbers of mobile
subscribers per 100 population vary strongly, from 93 in the United States to 215
in Hong Kong. In Japan, school children on long commutes to school would read
manga (Japanese cartoons) books to pass the time. Now they play video games
on Nintendo’s Game Boy or on their mobile phones.27 Contrary to expectations,
people have embraced the Internet and other new technology mostly to enhance
their current activities; it mainly has reinforced existing habits. Where people
like to talk, the mobile phone allows them to talk more; where people like to
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Chapter 1 The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications ——9
write, the Internet has facilitated writing. The Internet has not changed people.
It has reinforced existing habits, which instead of converging tend to diverge.
Whatever convergence takes place is at a macro level, such as convergence of
demographic phenomena like national wealth or graying populations. If consump-
tion converges, it also is mainly at the macro level, and it follows economic devel-
opment (i.e., household penetration of products, such as dishwashers or color
television sets). Empirical evidence of convergence tends to be based on macro
data, such as the numbers of telephones, television sets, or passenger cars per 1,000
population.
There is increasing evidence that at micro level, there is little convergence. U.S.
sociologist Alex Inkeles28 finds that macro-level data often mask diversity at
micro level. Convergence at a macro level—for example, convergence of Gross
National Income (GNI) per capita (the new term for Gross National Product
[GNP] per capita)—does not necessarily imply convergence of consumer choice.
Countries similar economically are not necessarily similar in their consumption
behavior, media usage, and availability patterns. There is no support for the argu-
ment that increased global mobility for business and vacations will cause people
to homogenize. People do not travel to an extent that they are frequently con-
fronted with other cultures. Even if all people were to have enough money to
travel abroad, they would not all travel to the same extent. In 2007, only 27% of
the inhabitants of 25 European countries said they had traveled abroad three
times in the previous 3 years.29 Only 9% had a job that involved contact with
organizations or people in other countries. Annually, only 0.4% of Europeans (1.5
million) worked in another European Union member state; 2.4% of Americans
work in a state other than the one where they grew up. In 2004, the percentage of
people who lived and worked in another country in Europe than the one where
they grew up is even lower: 0.1%, or 225,000 people.30 In 2011 in Europe, 44% of
young people aged 15 to 35 years old were not willing to work in another country.
These percentages varied between 20% in Sweden, 41% in the United Kingdom,
and 55% in Italy.31
The proportion of people around the world who watch international television
programs regularly is small. Global television channels, such as CNN and MTV,
were envisaged as global standard channels but have localized content and lan-
guage. For some time, it was assumed that watching North-American television
soaps would lead to cultural homogenization or that watching television programs
from other cultures would change basic values, but this was based on the assump-
tion of a homogeneous media audience, consisting of members who will process
programs in similar ways. When in their study of Dallas across cultures Liebes and
Katz32 asked for the meaning derived from this soap opera, respondents from other
cultures derived all sorts of different meanings from the soap than intended by the
producers, and these meanings were related to their own culture (see also Chapter 11).
Whatever effects were found were very weak, mainly that exposure to foreign TV
might increase purchase of foreign products.33
Also, young people do not travel to an extent that induces them to adopt differ-
ent habits and values. Of the young Europeans who visit other European countries,
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the majority do so while on vacation.34 White35 adds that people on vacation are not
in a mood that has much to do with their domestic purchasing behavior, so the
relevance of any advertising they see is limited.
Differences in consumer behavior across countries are persistent. As people
around the globe become well educated and more affluent, their tastes actually
diverge. With increased wealth, people accord greater relevance to their civiliza-
tional identity.36 At a certain level of economic development, in what I have called
“postscarcity”37 societies—when people’s stomachs are filled, when most people can
afford proper housing and durable products, such as cars and television sets—
people reach a higher level of unsatisfied needs. That is the moment when cultural
values become manifest, and these are reflected in the different choices of products
and brands. At that level, countries tend to diverge. What people do with their
incremental income, the extra money they have after they have bought the neces-
sary durables to live a comfortable life, varies increasingly. If, for example, we look
at ownership of digital cameras in 2011,38 national wealth explained differences
across countries worldwide, but the influence was weaker when we compared
28 countries worldwide with GNI per capita over US$19,000. Then the main
explaining variable was cultural. The phenomenon is strongest in Europe, where
countries have converged most in terms of GNI per capita. With respect to cultural
values, Europe is not a homogeneous area at all.
Here are a few specific examples of macro convergence and micro diver-
gence: Countries in Europe have converged for the total number of passenger
cars per 1,000 population, but the distribution across populations, numbers
owned per household, or type of car owned have diverged. Ownership of tele-
vision sets converged until 1997 and diverged after that year. With respect to
daily TV viewing minutes, countries converged between 1991 and 1993 and
diverged after 1993. Since then, the differences have remained stable. Newspa-
per readership in Europe has diverged.39 Also, Nowak and Kochkova40 found
examples of divergence across 25 European countries, such as spending on
communications.
In regions other than Europe, the trend is also toward divergence. Initially,
with increased wealth, standards of living appear to converge, but a closer look
makes clear that there are large differences. In Latin America, because of the large
differences between rich and poor, the rich in each country have more in com-
mon with the rich across borders than with their poorer compatriots, but
middle-income people differ from one country to another in the use of their
discretionary income. All Latin Americans use toothpaste and shampoo each day,
but there are varying brand preferences. Although 25% of Latin Americans eat
cold cereal for breakfast, the national figures vary from 48% in Central America
to 11% in the Southern Cone.41 Japan was the country that developed earliest and
fastest of all Asian countries, and it was expected that development patterns of
other countries in Asia would follow the pattern of Japan. This has not happened.
The economies of Malaysia and Indonesia are developing in different ways. The
values gap of American and European elites has widened, according to studies
conducted in 2002.42
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Chapter 1 The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications ——13
Global Communities
One of the preconditions of standardization is the existence of homogeneous global
segments across borders with similar values. Focus on similarities or marketing
universals rather than differences has led international marketers to search across
countries for market segments of people with similar lifestyles and values, which
they call “global communities” or “global tribes.” The assumption is that an 18-year-
old in Denmark has more in common with an 18-year-old in France than he has
with his elders, or that a young Japanese woman shopping in the Ginza has more in
common with a young American woman strolling a Manhattan street than she has
with her own parents. Business travelers and teenagers are most often cited as
examples of such homogeneous groups. In the eyes of many U.S. marketing man-
agers, the European youth market is considered to be homogeneous because these
youngsters were reared on the same movies and global brands, such as Coca-Cola
and Levi’s,46 and watched MTV, all of which has supposedly encouraged the devel-
opment of a global teenager with common norms and values. Assumed uniform
consumption habits of young people worldwide, their clothing styles, music tastes,
and media habits, are viewed as evidence of a homogenized group of consumers.
Increasingly, this has been found to be a myth created by the marketing industry.
It is a direct product of marketers’ own ideologically framed cultural constructions
via advertising, practitioner-oriented literature, and various other forms of cultural
production.47 Several value studies show that across countries, young people vary
as much as adults. General evidence is the fact that cross-cultural psychologists
who study value differences across cultures tend to use students as subjects. Also,
studies among parents and students in the United States, Japan, New Zealand,
France, Germany, and Denmark demonstrate the strong influence of culture on the
values of both parents and students. The values of parents and students within a
culture are relatively similar, with the greatest similarity between Japanese students
and parents.48
Youths from Stockholm to Seville may use the same type of mobile phone or
computer, but they may have bought it for different reasons. A survey by the adver-
tising agency Euro RSCG showed that attitudes toward technology vary enor-
mously among youth in large European cities. For example, 16% of respondents in
Amsterdam said entertainment was their primary reason for using technology,
compared with 9% in Helsinki and London and only 4% in Milan.49 Across Euro-
pean countries, young people’s leisure time activities vary, with 45% of Portuguese
youngsters watching TV as a leisure activity as compared with 8% of German
youngsters.50
Western magazines suggest that Asian teens, in the way they behave and dress
and express themselves, increasingly resemble American and European teens, but
this behavior is not driven by Western values. Moreover, there is no single teenage
culture in Asia; there is enormous diversity among Asian teenage lifestyles.51 Young
Japanese or Chinese may be typically Western on the surface, but they retain tradi-
tional values like hard work in addition to aspiring to make and spend money and
display success via branded goods.52 Typical Indian teenagers in Bombay, Delhi, or
Calcutta may be wearing a Lacoste shirt or Nike shoes, but they are very much
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Indian in their values. They respect their parents, live together in a family, and
remove their Nike shoes before entering a place of religion. Bond and King53 found
that most Hong Kong Chinese believed that modernization involved technology,
behavior, or material progress, whereas Westernization involved values, thinking,
or Western cultural traditions. Almost two thirds of respondents believed that
modernization could proceed in Hong Kong without cultural implications. About
half of them claimed that they managed to preserve their Chineseness by holding
onto basic Chinese moral values, such as filial piety and respect for teachers. Wang54
states, “One should not analyze what is emerging in China by taking a European
model as a starting point. . . . ‘Cool’ music and ‘alternative’ youth in China hardly
signal the same thing as their counterparts in Euro-America.”
A common misperception is that everywhere exist the young rebel against their
elders as a universal aspect of adolescence. However, the way the young develop
their identity, the way they relate to their elders, and the way they behave in school
vary enormously across cultures because of the values with which they are raised.
Indian adolescents show much less conflict than U.S. adolescents, who are involved
in self-creation and integrating an identity. In traditional Indian society, adoles-
cence is not the separate psychological state that it is in U.S. culture.55 A study by
ACNielsen found that Indonesian youth increasingly like to use traditional Indone-
sian products, prefer advertisements that use Indonesian models, and when sick
would rather use Indonesian medicine than Western medicine.56 Among Hong
Kong Chinese, although the younger generation values autonomy more than the
older generation does, teenagers give lower priority to early autonomy than do their
Western counterparts.57 Westerners make a mistake when they think Japanese val-
ues are changing because students between 18 and 25 years old act in an extreme
and revolutionary way. They have to realize that these years are the only free years
a Japanese person has in his or her entire life. With the advent of work comes con-
formance to the typical Japanese behavior. Also, Chinese punk cannot be equated
with a carefree spirit.58
Global homogeneous markets, such as businesspeople, youth, or rich people,
exist mainly in the minds of Western marketing managers and advertising people.
Even people with similar lifestyles do not behave as a consistent group of purchas-
ers. Yes, across countries, there are young people and yuppies (young urban profes-
sionals), rich people, and graying populations that have economic and demographic
aspects in common, but marketing communications cannot use similar motives
and arguments because these groups do not have the same values across cultures.
This is demonstrated by ownership of luxury products as measured by the Euro-
pean Media and Marketing Survey (EMS). The high-income European target,
consisting of people who read international media, is not one homogeneous,
cross-border target group for high-touch and high-tech luxury articles. Expendi-
tures on expensive luxury articles by this high-income group in Europe vary
enormously. In 2007, 17.2% of Portuguese respondents said they had bought an
expensive watch in the past year as compared with 8.5% of the Finns. Expensive
fragrances were bought by 43.4% of the French respondents and only 12.8% of
Swedish respondents.
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The wish to standardize marketing and advertising lies in export practice. In 1966,
one of the early U.S. advertising professors, Watson Dunn,61 stated,
This quotation covers the dilemmas of U.S. companies when selling their
products outside the United States: standardize for greater efficiency or adapt for
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greater effectiveness. Most papers published since Dunn’s article have focused
on opinions, attitudes, and practices of the manufacturer with respect to this
choice. Many of these were conceptual and based on assumptions without
empirical evidence.62 The standardization discussion basically is a sales discus-
sion and not grounded in marketing philosophy as the wants and needs of con-
sumers are not considered. Proponents of standardization rely on a strong belief
in the universality of fundamental human needs as well as the assumption that
advertising purposes are universal; thus, advertising can be the same every-
where. The idea was that a strong concept or buying proposal crosses borders;
only the execution must be adapted.
Frequently quoted authors proposing a standardization strategy are Erik
Elinder63 and Theodore Levitt.64 Elinder, then chairman of the board of the Swedish
Sales Institute, believed that convergence of standards of living and improving tech-
nical means were facilitating standardization of advertising would justify identical
advertising messages for all European countries. He believed in the emergence of
one-language (English) television, in all-European media, and in increased travel
that would lead to European consumers with similar habits. His criteria for con-
vergence were mainly economical. According to Levitt, the driving forces for
convergence of needs and desires are technology and modernity.
A powerful force drives the world toward a converging commonality, and that
force is technology. It has proletarianized communication, transport, and travel.
It has made isolated places and impoverished peoples eager for modernity’s
allurements. . . . Even people who adhere to ancient religions and attitudes are in
favor of modernity: the Ibos in Biafra are seen drinking Coca-Cola and in
isolated Siberia people want digital watches. . . . The world’s needs and desires
have irrevocably homogenized.
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was an increase in global branding rather than a big increase in global products.
But even this may not be as extensive as it seems. The point has been made
often; the same names, such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, that were originally
cited are still cited today. Very few new ones have been added to the list. . . . Levitt
may have taken the extensive diffusion of a few brands as representative of the
wide diffusion of many.66
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Chapter 1 The Paradoxes in Global Marketing Communications ——19
by selling one single product worldwide and not adapting to usage and attitude
differences that become apparent some time after introduction, manufacturers run
the risk of finding a mass market in one culture and a niche market in another. In
different phases of a product’s life cycle, different advertising approaches are
needed. Established brands in different markets may have different brand images,
making it difficult to move the product to a global approach.
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The Consumer
Consumer factors (also called environmental factors) include customer similar-
ity (lifestyles, preferences, tastes) and differences (culture, climate, language), along
with spending power.
Although traditional thinking in international marketing has primarily focused
on the similarities of market segments, increasingly, it is recognized that the critical
factor is differences. The more marketers understand the differences in consumer
behavior across countries, the more effective international marketing and advertis-
ing will be.86 As Kenichie Ohmae already stated in 1989,
Effect on Performance
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Increasingly, studies have included performance, and the results vary. The rela-
tionship of standardization and performance varies across target markets.89 A study
among U.S. and Japanese multinationals in five countries in Europe reported that
standardized advertising is effective across the European Union.90 Several other
studies have found that adaptation leads to better performance. One study discov-
ered that managers were underadapting their offerings in foreign markets and that
more adaptation might make them more profitable.91 Brand repositioning, or the
adaptation of the total representation of a domestic brand to one that is relevant to
the minds of its foreign customers, contributes to greater performance.92 A
three-nation study of the international marketing practices of manufacturing firms
in the United States, Japan, and South Korea found that product adaptation strategy
is positively associated with export performance in all three countries.93
Those who find a positive relationship between adaptation and performance
note that scholars underscore the need to understand the factors that transform
market-oriented behavior into superior performance. Superior performance means
marketing competence in handling product adaptation, the marketing planning
process, control of marketing activities, and insight about how to differentiate the
product, as well as conducting highly effective pricing, advertising, and distribution
strategies.94 These positive relationships between performance and adaptation seem
to indicate that standardization is not good business practice.
The well-known advertising research company Millward Brown has studied the
effects of advertising for a long time and concluded that few advertisements can
transcend cultural boundaries. While using the same advertising campaign across
borders may offer cost efficiencies, the savings may not outweigh the benefit of
local engagement.95
Summary
The theoretical foundations of global marketing theory center on the perception of
consumer homogeneity and/or the movement toward homogeneity as a result of
various globalization forces. There is little empirical evidence to support this. On
the contrary, evidence shows that the future doesn’t hold one global culture. Several
aspects of global marketing theory are paradoxical.
The global-local paradigm is a paradox: One cannot think globally; every
human being thinks according to his or her own culturally defined thinking pat-
tern. One can act globally, and that is what global companies do. When they global-
ize, they produce and distribute globally, which demands many strategic decisions.
An important decision is whether to standardize global operations or adapt to local
requirements. The academic debate about this decision has been ongoing for the
past 50 years, without clear-cut solutions. Studies of the relationship between adap-
tation and performance seem to show that adaptation leads to better results. Studies
described in this chapter have focused on various marketing mix instruments. The
following chapters of this book will focus on branding and advertising.
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22——GLOBAL MARKETING AND ADVERTISING
Notes
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