Assignment The Role Of Advertising

THE ROLE OF ADVERTISING LDCs and socialist/communist countries, emphasizing production and distribution efficiency, usually attack advertising as a wasteful practice whose primary purpose is to create unnecessary wants. Yet advertising serves a very useful purpose-consumers everywhere, irrespective of their countries political systems and level of economic development, need useful product information. Since the 1950s China has prohibited foreigners from advertising there because advertising was considered politically inappropriate. In the 1980s, however, China changed its policy in order that the Chinese population could be informed of products available, just as in a modern industrial society. Virtually all media are how available for advertising billboards, department stores display cases, telephone books, newspapers, magazines, and journals. Even radio and TV time is available and can be purchased. TV advertising is quite a bargain, since a sixty-sexily-second spot for the nationally broadcast China Central Television I network costs only 55,000. Chinese viewers generally enjoy watching the commercials shown. One study of our developing countries found that singaporeans, probably the most economically advanced among the group, had more negative feelings than those in other countries. They were least likely to see advertising as being economically beneficial, and they were also most critical of the social impact of advertising. Interesting, Russian consumers were found to exhibit more variable attitudes toward advertising in general, whereas American respondents felt that advertising resulted in greater negative social effects.2 A correlation has been shown to exist between advertising expenditures and

a country's GNP and level of economic development. As a country becomes more industrialized, the level of advertising expenditure tends to increase as well. the United States is highest in per capita advertising at $499 per person. In the case of japan, Canada, Germany, and France, the figures are $298, $196, and $154, respectively.3 Regarding the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), foreign companies are responsible for about half of the advertising done there. The advertising expenditures in the CIS, at about $30 million,

are quite tiny and

represent only the amount for a small advertising account in the United States. Proctor and Gamble, the world's advertising leader, annually spends $2.3 billion worldwide to promote its products. Many of the largest advertisers in the United States also advertise heavily overseas. Proctor and Gamble and General Motors, for example, are among the largest advertising spenders in France and Canada. Local firms in markets outside the United States often view this kind of expenditure as an unfair trade practice. They fear that American firms could easily overwhelm local firms in terms of advertising dollars.

PATTERNS OF ADVERTISING EXPENDITURES: In one study, advertising-to-sales ratios varied across fifteen countries, with ratios ranging from 0.95 for Yugoslavia to 7.62 for Australia. These ratios were not related to propulsion size, number of directly competing brands within the firm, or number of directly competing brands outside the firm and provide information on

budgeting methods, media allocation, measures of advertising effectiveness, an d compensation methods. The relationship between advertising expenditure and sales generated has been well documented. Certain variables determine the size of the advertising budget as well as the size of the overall marketing budget. According to the wellpublicized ADVISOR models, the size of an advertising budget is a function of Sales (+) number of users and other participants )+), customer concentration (-), fraction of sales made to order (-). stage in life cycle (-), and product plans )+). The size of a marketing budget is a function of prospect-customer attitude differences (-), proportion of direct sales )+), and product complexity (-). It should be pointed out that the importance of particular predictor variables is not uniform across countries. It is important to note variations in the various kinds of marketing expenses when expressed as a percentage of sales across countries and product categories. The variations in the marketing expense ratios indicate the executives should be careful when they approach advertising budget decisions in other cultures.

ADVERTISING AND REGULATIONS: Advertising can be affected in several ways by local regulations. The availability of media (or the lack of it) is one example. When and how much media time and space are made available, if at all, is determined by local authorities. Belgium prohibits the use of electricity for advertising purposes between midnight and 8:00 A.M. German was regulate TV advertising contents and limit advertising on the national TV channels to twenty minutes a day, forcing advertisers to switch

from state-run TV to private channels. Greece and South Korea ban the erection of new signs. Furthermore, nationalism may int rude in the form of a ban on the use of foreign languages nd materials in advertising. The advertising industry may have a local self-regulatory organization which regulates the styles and contents of promotional activities. As in the case of England, broadcast advertisements to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. For instance, no medium can be used to advertise alcoholic drinks if more than 25 percent of the audience is under eighteen years. Children mu,st not be encouraged to eat or drink at bedtime or to replace main meals with confectionery or snack foods. Regarding motor vehicles, speed or acceleration should not be the predominant message, and cars on public roads must not be shown to exceed speed limits. Those selling treatment of minor addictions and bad habits must acknowledge the vital role of willpower. The legitimacy of comparative advertising has not been fully settled in many countries. The Draft Directive of the EEC Commission on Misleading and Unfair Advertising has proposed that comparative advertising shall be allowed, as long as it compares material and verifiable details and is neither misleading nor unfair. In effect, this directive would require Austria, Belgium, France, Itals, and Luxembourg to remove present bans. Certain products are banned altogether from certain media or from advertising in certain countries. According to the World Health Organization, nations with complete bans on cigarette advertising are Norway. Finland, Italy, Iceland, Mozambique, Algeria, Joudan, Sudan, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia,

Yugoslavia, Singapore, and French Polynesia. Those with partial bans include Senegal,Bolivia, Cyhprus, Canada, Egypt, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Interpreting the law creatively, R./J. Reymnolds attempted to circumvent Norway's ban on cigarette advertising by advertising "Camel boots" instead. The advertisement used the same model, trademark, and the lettering in the Word Camel as those used in Camel's cigarette advertisements. After a protest, the advertisement swas eventcually withdrawn. Advertisements in France are limited to a pricture of a cigarette package with no "Seductive imagery". To overcome this restriction, cigarette makers create products such as Marboro cigasrette lighters and Pall Mall matches that are purposefully made to resemble cigarette packages becau,se there is no restriction on how such products can be advertised. In Sudan, Philip Morris advertised by having the Marlboro cowboy hold a Marlboro ligher.

ADVERTISING MEDIA: International advertising is the practice of advertising in foreign or international media when the advertising campaign is planned, directly or indirectly, by an advertiser from another country. To advertise overseas, a company must determine the availability (or unavailability) of advertising media. Media may not be readily available in all countries or in certain areas within the countries. Furthermore, the techniques used in media overseas can be vastly different from the ones employed in the United States.

TELEVISION: For Americans, television is taken for granted because it is available every where and in color. Outsidde of the United States, even in other advanced nations, it is a different story altogether. This difference may explain why U.S. advertisers spend $ 20 billion each yeasr on TV commercials, four times the amount European advertisers spend. In most countries, television is not available on a nationwide basis because of the lack of TV stations, relay stations, and cable. TV. Color television, for the poor, is a rarity. Nevertheless, the viewing habits of people of lower income should not be underestimated because of the "group viewing" factor. For example, a TV set in a village hall can attrract a large number of viewers, resulting in a great deal of interaction among the villagers in terms of conversation about the advertised products. In many countries, TV stations are state controlled and government operated because of military requirements. As such, the stations are managed with the public welfasre rasther than a commercial objective in mind. The programming and advertising asre thus closely controlled. The programs shown may vary widely and are usually dubbed in the local languages. European governments particularly abhor the U.S. Private-broadcast model with its degenerate mass programming. More recently, however, European restrictions have been reduced on featuring films with freaquent interruptions from advertisements. This reduction is due in part to an attempt by European countries such as France to end t he government monopoly on media and to privatize the broadcast business by making available private

broadcasting franchises. Commercial TV time is usually extremely difficult to buy overseas. This is true even in Europe and Japan, where television is widespread. The usual practice in Tokyo is to use TV advertising to bombard the market, but the challenge for the marketer is to get air time. There are several reasons why television advertising time is severely limited. Most countries only have a few TV channels, which do not schedule daytime television or late-night programs. With less broadcast time comes less advertising time. Some countries do not allow program sponsorship other than spot announcements. Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden ban advertising on television altogether. Some governsment permit advertising only during certain hour of operation. In Germany, advertising on television is permitted only between 6:15 and 8:00 P.M. (except Sundays and holidays) for a total advertising time available of twenty minutes. Th at same number of commercial minutes also applies to Switzerlnd. The problem of getting a frasction of the available television time was so severe for Unilever that the firm had to make adjustments in media strategy by relying more on other media. In most countries, the situation is such that an advertiser is fortunate to get air time at all. There are at least two tactices an advertiser can employ to overcome the problem of lack of broadcast time for advertising. One is to use shorter commercials. In the United States, 61 percent of TV spots are thirty-second commercials, and 35 percent are fifteen-second commercials. In Japan, 79 percent of TV spots are fifteen-second commercials. Not surprisingly, clutter is worse in Japan; there are sixteen commercials per hour in the United Stastes but thirty

commercials per hour in Japan. Although disputed in the United States, fifteen-second spots have become the norm in some countries. Spots shorter than thirty seconds are an overwhelming majority in France (71 percent), JHapan (79 percent), and Spain (90 percent). As a matter of fact, the Japanese even have eight-second spots that function almost like billboards on TV nd yet are graphically compelling. Another tactic is to purchase TV time well in advance. With a waiting list of 100 companies, TV advertising time in the Netherlands must be booked with a year's notice. Those advertisers able to get air time still face other advertising hurdles. For example, commercial interruptions can be long and frequent, creating a severe problem of clutter. Advertisers sometimes use television station in one country to reach consumers in-another country. Canada is a prime example. More than 75 percent of Canadians are clustered within 100 miles of the U.S. border, and 95 percent are within 200 miles. Thus, nearly all canadians are within the broadcast range of U.S. Stations. U.S.advertisers often use U.S. TV stations to communicate with Canadian consumers. In fasct, canadian advertisers themselves make it a prasctice of using U.S. stations at the border (e.g. Detroit, Spokane, and Buffalo) cto air commercials aimed primarily at the Canadian market. Reasons forx this practice are that American TV stations have higher program ratings than Canadian stations, and that the Canadian audience in total spends some twenty-six billion hours a week viewing U.S. shows-the equivalent of 78 percent of the total hours spent watching Canadian English-language TV programs.

New techn ology may allow advertisers to solve some of the problems related to TV time and government regultion (e.g. a ban on the advertising of certain products or to certain groups). Cable TV is now available in Western Europe Commercial programs, for example, can be beamed from the United kingdom to cable networks in Norway, Finland, and Switzerland. Retransmitting the signal, however, is still illegal in Norway. Satellite TV may present another solution and is gaining wider acceptance. Mc-Donald's and Mars have begun to funnel some advertising dollars to the Sky Channel satellite network. McDonald's has used special commercials promoting safety in order to placate those Eurxopean countries that restrict product advertising aimed at children. In can be seen that cable TV and satellite TV are often international media in the sense that they reach multiple countries outside the country where the broadcast originates. Tu,rner Broadcasting's Cable News Network has a global reach of more than sixty million households in more than 200 countries and territories. MTV has access to some forty-six million cable-equipped and satelliteequipped homes in Eurxope and can reach eighty-eight million more in the former Soviet Union. The problem with this new technology has been that, when an advertisement is aired, consumers in all countries are exposed to an identical message. But improved technology may in the future allow advertisers to beam particular advertising versions to different countries.

RADIO: Radio is no longer king of the media in the United States, but it retains its status in many countries as they only truly national medium. In Mexico for example, radio provides coverage for 83 percent of the country. It is popular for several reasons. A radio set is inexpensive and affordable-even among poor people. It is virtually a free medium for listeners; the programs are free and the costs of operating and maintaining a radio set are almost negligible. Furthermore, illiteracy poses no problem for this advertising medium. As a communicastion medium, radio is entertaining, up-to-date, and portable. The medium penetrates from the highest to the lowest socioeconomic levels, with FM stations being preferred by high-income and better-educated listeners. Not surprxisingly, radio commands the largest portion of advertising expenditures in a great number of makrets. In order for radio stations in the United States to survive and counter the threat of television, they have adopted txhe "magazine" format by specializing in a parrticular type of programming. Advertisers must not assume that stations have adopted this same approach abroad. In many countries, radio stations have not become specialized in a particular program format and see no need to be selective in order to attract the listening audience. Radio stations commonly vary their programming format throughout the day, sometimes as often as every half hour. An audience shift should thus be expected, and a consequence of this practice ins that it may not be easy to reach the target market effectively. Unlike U.S. stations, which do their own programming and hire theirx own announcers or disc jockeys, overseas stations are quite liberal in selling air time

outside operators. This is true in spite of the fact t hat for security reasons most overseas stations are owned, controlled, nd operated by the government. Once the air time h as been sold, the program format is determined by the sponsor or independent discjokey. A certain disc jockey might even buy air time to broadcast from a number of stations, promoting his or her identity by frequently mentioning his or her name or titxle of show, by playing a particulasr theme song to begin and end the program, and by soliciting calls and letters from the audience. Thus, listeners loyalty is not so much to the station but to the dis jockey who may roam from one station to another throughout the day. Although air time for commercials is usually available, advertisers should still expect certain problems. The availability of a radio network is generally limited, and an advertiser must use many stations to blanket the entire market. Mexico's low program ratings also make it necessary for an advertiser to use many stations and spots to achieve impact. Also, many stations terminate their broadcast at an early hour each day. Because of these conditions, clutter is a tremendous problem. Program breaks are frequent and commercial minutes are so numerous that listeners have adopted the habit of constantly changing stations.

NEWSPAPERS: In virtually all urban areas of the world, the population has access to daily newspapers. In fact the problem for the advertiser is not one of having too few newspapers but rather one of having too many of them. In the United States, large cities can rarely support more than two dailies. In other countries, a city may have

numerous newspapers dividing the readership market. Lebanon, with a population of 1.5 million, has some 200 daily and weekly newspapers, with the average circulation per paper of only 3,500. Newspapers in communist countries are controlled by the government and are thus used for propaganda purposes. China's newspapers, for example, txend to casrry news items thast the government deems to express some moral and social value. Believing that sensational news attracts readership, most non U.S. new3spapers in the free world are set up in a sensational news format. It is a rule rather than the exception for these newspapers to concentrate on murders, robberies, scandals, and rapes. Even the United Kingdom, where the citizens are known for their reserved manner, is not exempt from this practice. World news and nonscandalous political news often take a back seat to the more sensational news. As a result, non U.S. news papers look more like such weekly U.S. tabloids as the National Enquirer and Star. A newspaper that concentrate on news of substance and qualaity (i.e. unsensational news) must pay for this in terms of low readership. Many countries have English-language newspapers in addition to the local language newspapers. The English-language newspapers are patterned more like the traditional American paper, with an emphasis on world, government, and txhe business news. This vehicle would be appropriate for an advertiser to reach government and business leaders, educated readers, upper-class people and those with affluence and influence. The aim of the Asiam Wall Streetx Journal is to supply economic information in English to influential businesspersons, politicians, top

government officials and intellectuals. It was not designed to be a newspaper for mass readers. Exhibit shows a number of English-language newspapers in Asia, each carrying World Paper, an internastional news supplement. Some countries have nationally distributed newspapers. But it is difficult to find a true national newspaper because almost every newspaper tries to be momewhat local in nature. Even in the United States, before USA Today, the closest thing to a national newspaper was perhaps the New York TXimes, with the Washington Post in second place. Clearly, it is even more difficult to have an international newspaper. Those papers distributed internationally include The International Herald Tribune and such financial news papers as The Wall Street Journal (with the Asian Wall Street Journal for Asian countries) and the United Kingdom's Financial Times. As might be expected, these newspapers are not available everywhere, and the circulation is low. Financial Times, a century-old daily covering British business, sinternational business, and economic and political news, has a worldwide circulation of about 230,000, with only 6,000 sold in the United States and Canada. Still, the Financial TXimes offers U.S. advertisers access to upscale readers in Europe and other parts of the world. There are several problems associated with advertising in foreign newspapers. The purchase of space is a monumental problem. The general unavailability of space is the result of overseas newspapers having a fixed and small number of pages for each edition, including the sunday paper. This may seem strange to American advertisers, who asre used to getting newspaper space at anytime with just a few days notice. American advertisers are often puzzled about

why overseas publishers do not add more pages to accommodate advertisements that would bring in revenue. The answer is that equipment is limited and so is paper. Japanese newspapers, which experience these production complicastions, are limited to only sixtxeen-to-twenty pages a day. Because newspapers may have to ration and turn away advertisers, marketers may need special arrangements to buy space on short notice. American advertisers are accustomed to having separate editorial sections in American newspapers and are often frustrated by foreign papers. A twenty-page newspaper may still have sections for sports, entertainment, fashion, business, and science, but each section may be only one page. Thus, it becomes difficult for an advertiser to match the product to the proper section or environment (e.g. tire and automotive products in the sports section) in a local newspaper. Furthermore, with so many newspapers dividing a small market, it is expensive to reach the entire market. There are some 380 and 800 newspapers in Turkey and Brazil, respectively. With advertisements in just one paper, the reach would be quite inadequate. Advertising in several papers, on the other hand, is also imprasctical. It is fortunate for advertisers that people often read or subscribe to two or more dailies and often share newspapers. Despite a small circulation, readership may still be high. Usually, txhe pass-along rate in foreign markets is much higher than that in the United Stastes. But reliable estimates of circulation of overseas newspapers asre difficult to obtain. The figure provided by the newspaper publisher may be highly inflated, and there is no meaningful way, at least for advertisers, to measure or audit the circulation figures.

MAGAZINES: Nowshere else in the world are there so many and varied types of consumer magazines as there are in the United States. Because U.S. magazines segment the reading market in every conceivable manner, there are magazines for the masses as well as for the few and select. This makes it possible for advertisers to direct their campaigns to obtain reach (the total number of unduplicasted individuals exposed to a particular media vehicle at least once during a specified time period) or frequency (the intensity or the number of times within a specified period that a prospect is exposed to the message) orx both. Foreign magazines are generally not highly developed in terms of a pasrticulr audience. They do not segment their readers as narrowly as U.S. magazines do, and they do not have the same degree of accurate information about reader characteristics. In Brazil, there are very few magazines, and people read all three of four of them. This results in duplicastion which can be a waste of promotional effort unless frequency is the objective. Marketers of international products have the option of using international magazines that have regional editions (e.g. Time, Business Week, Newsweek and Life). In the case of Reader's Digest, local-language editions are distributed. AllenEdmonds, a shoe company, was able to increase its foreign sales by advertising its shoes in the internastional editions of such magazines. For technical and industrial products, magazines can be quite effective. Technical business publications tend to be international in their coverage. These publications range from individual industries (e.g. construction, beverages, textiles, etc) to world wide industrial

magazines coverxing many industries. A trade magazine about China, for example, is a suitable vehicle for all types of industrial products of interest to the Chinese goverxnment. In Europe, the number of business publications is seven times as high as that in the United States. There are more than 1,000 technical and trade journals in Scandinavia. Canada in contrast, usually has only one trade magazine for each market segment, making it easier to cover the entire Canadian market. Local (i.e. national) business magazines are a good vehicle to reach well-defined target audiences. Nikkei Business is one such magazine in Japan. Unlike the U.S. market, which has an organization such as the ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations) to audit the circulastion figures for most magazines, the circulation figures of overseas magazines are somewhat unreliable. Furthermore, overseas masgazines tend to depend more on newsstand sales than on subscription sales, making it difficult to calculate consistent volume or to predict the size of readership in advance. Because many magazines are unaudited, either by choice or by lack of an audit bureau, it is not sensible to exclude unaudited publicastions from the media schedule. Even when publicastions are audited, the information given may not be adequate. The English ABC provides minimum information, whereas the German IVW audit is very thorough.

DIRECT MAIL: Confusion usually arises when such terms as direct mail, direct advertising, direct marketing, and mail order are discussed. It is important to understand that direct marketing is a broad term that encompasses the other related terms.

According to the Direct Marketing Associastion (DMA), direct marketing is the total of activities by which products and services are offered to market segments in one or more media for informational purposes or to solicit a direct response from a prxesent or prospective customer of contributor by mail, telephone, or personal visit. This is a more than $1 billion businessx in the United States. As a system, direct marketing has two distinct components: 1.

Promotion

2.

Orddering/delivery

Direct marketers can promote their products through all advertising media. They can solicit orders by making announcements on television or in magazines (usually with coupons or order forms). Television home shopping is a form of direct marketing. Some cable TV channels (e.g. the Home Shopping Network in the United States and the Canadian Home Shopping Network) asre designed specially for this purpose. In any case, local regulations must be followed. In France, advertisers cannot show direct sales telephone numbers on screen. Viewers must call the number on screen to obtain a second number for placing orders. In Canada, until recently, home shopping services were restricted to using still images on TV. Stasrting in 1995, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission h as made it possible for marketers to use full-motion video in electronic retailing services. Also, infomercials now can be aired throughout the day not just midnight to 6 A.M. Frequently, marketers rely on direct advertising in media created for that purpose. These media consist of direct mailings and all forms of print

advertisements distributed directly to prospects through a variety of methods (i.e. advertising materials distributed door to door, on the street, or inside the store or those placed inside shopping bags and on auto windshields). Direct mail is thus only one kind of direct advertising medium, which is in turn a part of generaladvertising media or the promotional methods or direct marketing. Of course, the use of direct mail is not limited to just direct marketing. The Direct Marketing Association annually publishes a break-down of direct-marketing expenditxures by media in selected countries. With regard to ordsering, buyers can place orders by telephone (often with a toll free number), through a personal visit, or by mail. An order that is sent in by mail and fulfilled by mail delivery is called a mail order. Thus, mail order is not a medium; rather it is just one of several means that can be used to place and handle orders. An orderxing method consists of one of the two components of the direct marketing system. For this discussion, direct mail and direct marketing are considered together. There are several rxesons for doing so. Direct mail generally accounts for a major portion of direct marketing advertising expenditures. Also, many reports on direct marketing campaigns do not provide a detailed breakdown of the advertising dollar accounted for by media other than direct mail. Directc mail is lasrgely undeveloped in many countries. This is especially true where labor is cheap and abundant and where it is just as easy to use a salesperson to make sales calls. Furthermore, for countries with high illiteracy, this medium is not suitable for promoting consumer products.

Without doubt, the United States in the most developed masrket for the advertising medium of direct mail. Foreign masrketers as wsell as American marketers have a wide slection of buyer lists that permit them to contact the intended tasrget audience with minimum waste. European masrketers are far behind the United States in exploiting the medium of direct mail. Also there are more restrictions on collection of personal data. In Germany, mail cannot be sent to those who hasve requested that their names be rxemoved from mailing lists. If an addressee has a label on one's mailbox rxefusing direct mail, delivery cannot be made. Furthermore, although personal data may include year of birth, date of birth is not allowed. U.S. practices in using direct mail require some modificastion when taken abroad. There is difficulty in making a directc transposure of a U.S. mailing piece whithout change into a European mailing kit because of various weight rules and other unique regulations. Population direct-mail lists are another serious problem since foreign list owners do not trust renters and brxokers. List generation and management is still primitive abroad. American list owners enhance their lists with such information as buyers frequency, recency, and dollar valaue, but direct marketers used to those prasctices can become frustrated with list brokers in Europe (except in Germany) because basic selection criteria are not even provided. Also, privacy laws are more restrictive abroad than in the United States. For example, Germany allows only two unique selection criteria per order when renting a list. In Asia, just like in Europe, the use of direct mail is on the rise. With the

emergence of local list brokers in Asia, a marketer can now purchase reasonable lists for the Asian masrket. It is common to mail materials from Singapore because of competitive printing servicves, availability of professional letter mailing firms, and discounts on airmail postate rates. U.S. companies using direct mail to contact customers abroad may find remailing useful and economical. There are three basic ways to move a marketer's promotional materials from the United States. First, the ISAL (International Surface Air-lift) system was designed by the U.S. Postal Service to use a combination of air and surfasce transportastion. This is the least expensive way of moving materials for bulk mailers and publishers. After being received at ISAL's acceptance points, the material is airlifted to selected distribution points around the world where it merges with other surface-mail pieces. Second, mailers who do not want to bother with ISAL's requirements can pay a surcharge to ISAL consolidators, which asre private companies that will sort, bag, and transport the material to an ISAL gateway city. Finally, remailers asre private distribution services that provide a turnkey system and negotiate privaste rates with airline cargo divisions.

OUTDOOR: Outdoor advertising includes posters, billboards, painted bulletins, roadside and store signs, and electric spectaculars (large illuminted, electric signs with special lighting and animated effects). Given the great impact and impressiveness of size and color, outdoor advertising serves well as reminder prxomotion for wellknown products.

Outdoor advertising is frequently used overseas because of the low cost of medium, because an advertiser can simply place its posters on any available wall bus-stop, shelter, tree, or fence without paying for it. The prasctice also encourages one advertiser to replace other advertisers posters with one of its own. Unlike most media, outdoor advertising is one medium in which the United States seems to lag behind other countries in terms of per-capita advertising expenditures and sophistication. This is an advanced and dominant medium in Eurxope and Canada. Outdoor advertising is also very important in countries without commercial TV (e.g.Belgium). In Saudi ASrabia outdoor and transit posters account for more than a quarter of all media sepnding, roughly ten tximes the U.S. percentage. Outdoor advertising does not have to be uniteresting. One advertiser changes its outdoor illustration and message frequently-with the model removing an item of clothing each time the poster board is changed. Another advertiser made it appear that the billboard was gradually being eaten away by termites. New technologies have added such design options as backlighting, projection, Day-Glo paints, three-dimensionals, extensions, reflective disks, bows, and cutouts. Fiber optics may eventually replace neon because fiber optics are much more energy efficient and weightx less than neon glass tubing. Some advertisers have turned to video billboards that can show a twenty-second commercial repeatedly. When using outdoor advertising, certain rules should be followed. Illustrations should be larege, and words should be kept to a minimum. A rule of

thumb is to say "What must be said" and not "Whgat can be said". Simple, contrasting colors should be used; white on black or red seems to work well. The right typeface is critical; certain typefaces are difficult to read. Having all letters in capitals can be equally as difficult and should be avoided.

SCREEN (CINEMA): In virtually all countries, the cinema is a favorite activity for social gathering. People are avid moviegoers because of the limitied television broadcasting and because of people's natural desire to go out to a place of social gathering. Cinemas (or theaters, as they are called in many parts of the world) asre classified as firstclass or second-class and sometimes even third-class, depending on how soon new films are shown there. Theaters usually open at noon during the weekdays and earlier on weekends, and the usually operate on a reserved-seat basis, with advance reserve bookings being highly encouraged. In Japan, the lack of theaters allows theater operators to pick and choose films and to book only those that will be heavily promoted months before the actual showing, preferably with repeated announcements in prime time on TV. Much like outdoor advertising, the cinema is a very popular advertising medium outside of the United States. Cinemas sell commercial time to agencies of advertisers. The usual practice is for a theater to begin its program with a showing of slides of advertised products, and this slide show is followed by commercials. The theater may then proceed to show newsreels and documentaries that may contain paid news items such as a store opening. Then, just before the showing of

the main fature, there are short promotional films or teaser trailers of coming attractions. An intermission can present another opportunity for advertising. Cinema advertising has several advantages. It has the impact of oudoor advertising without the drawback of being stationary. It has sight and sound like television but with better quality. Furthermore, cinema advertising has a true captive audience. A disadvantage is tht some moviegoers may resent having to watch commercials. But such resentment is likely a minor problem, since moviegoers are usually in positive and receptive mood. The more serious problem is that patrons, knowing thast there will be some commercials shown first, take their time in showing up and may be wandering into and about the theater until the main feature begins.

DIRECTORIES: Directories are books that provide listings of people, professions, and institutions. They yellow-page telephone directories, with a listing of various types of companies are a prime example. Directories may be sold or given away free of charge. Because the telephone is not widely available in many areas and the information is not accurate, this medium has been underutilized outside of the United States. In some countries, governments and private entities publish trade directories of local exporters and their advertisements.

RURAL MEDIA: In marketing to LDCs, marketers must understand the use of rural media.

Mobile units, for example, can be sent to areas lacking access to mass media. Such vehicles can play recorded music and advertising messages over amplifiers or loudspeakers attached to the vehicles rooftops. A marketer can also attract an audience by arranging for some type of festival advertising held at a temple or school. A free out door movie can be shown during the festival while advertising is broadcast through loudspeakers to the captive audience. In a way, such rural media are not much different than the traveling "medicine" shows of the American past.

STADIUM: Stadium advertising is also appropriaste, especially in soccer stadiums, because soccer (i.e. "football") is the most popular and passionate sport in the world. Signs can be displayed on stadium walls, and the advertising rules for outdoor advertising should be applied. The objective of this advertising is not so much to communicate with those in a basketball or football stadium but rather to communicate with TV viewers. For nonstop games like soccer and hockey, a broadcaster can show the entire game while including logos or brief advertising messages on the edges of the screen-at the top, bottom, side, or all around, with the game being shown in the middle part of the screen. Cigarette marketers are major sponsors of sports and cultural events (e.g. billiards, horse racing, rugby, and symphony orchestras) in England because these events receive extensive TV dcoverage. In effect, the prominent display of names and logos allows companies to associate their brands with glamor, health, vitality and success.

OTHER MEDIA: There are several other advertising media that are traditional and common in LDCs and elsewhere. Some of these media are advertising specialies, a variety of inexpensive items (e.g. pens, calendars letter openers) carrying the advertiser's name addrxess, and a short sales message. In spite of the cost, such items are relatively durable. Because of their attractive appeasrance and low production cost. Ajinomoto's calendasr-type products are an effective display in Japan and other Asian countries. A charming, attractive young girl (Miss Ajinomoto) serves as an "eye-catcher" to help advertise products. Ajinomoto provides three-ounce bottles to restaurants as tooth-pick holders or seasoning containers. In addition to using the traveling cinema, a popular form of entertainment. Ajinomoto also uses the traveling cooking school, which combines the expertise of a cook and a nutritionist, to provide instruction and educastion to many institutions such as schools. Moreover, the company uses "exhibitions", or public-service advertising, to promote total company image and technical expertise, such as with the anticancer medicine Lentinan and the sugarless sweetener Aspartame. One recent medium that has gained world wide attention is the Internet. Unlike other media, the Internet is global in nature, creating both worldwide opportunities and problems. It is unknown whether the law governing an Internet promotion should be the law of the upload site or that of the download site. Although all the other media allow marketers to a cvertain extent to restrict delivery of their messages, the Internet is an all-or-nothing proposition. thus, it is so easy to violate

many domestic laws. Also given its international nature, the Internet requires global planning and the cultural dimension must be considered. A successful Web site is the one that his been carefully planned, taking into account the various languages and cultures.

MEDIA MIX: There is no one single advertising medium that is suitable for all countries and products. The media mix has to vary from one target market to another. One study focused on the changing media consumption of four groups of people. Hong Kong residents, long-time Hong Kong immigrants to Canada, new Hong Kong immigrants to Canada, and English-speaking Caucasian Canadians. While the immigrant groups did not increase their total media consumption, their consumption across different media refl;ected both ethnic affirmation and assimilation processes. In other words, immigrants acculturation process was influenced by their original media consumption behaviour and language ability. The basic principles of media selection apply in all markets. In general, an advertising medium should be selective and cost-effective in reaching a large number of the intended audience. It should deliver the kind of reach, frequency, and impact desired, assuming that there are no pasrticular legal restrictions. Tokyo Toyopet provide a good illustration of how advertising media are selected to promote cars-in this case, Toyota casrs. Newspapers and magazines, due to their national circulation in Japan, asre unsuitable because this division of Toyota only concentrates on the Tokyo market. TV time is not readily available and

much too expensive. As a result, radio advertising in the clear-cut choice.

STANDARDIZED INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING: Standardized international advertising is the practice of advertising the same product in the same way everywhere in the world. The controversy of the standardization of global advertising centers on the appropriateness of the variation (or the lack of it) within advertising content from country to country. The technique has generated a beated and lively debaste for more than thirty years and has been both praised and condemned-passionately. Doing research is difficult in this area because of the ambiguous definition of standardization itself. Strictly speaking, a standardized advertisement is an advertisement that is used internationally with virtually no change in its theme, copy, or illustration (other than translation). More recently, a new breed of advocates of standardization has claimed that an advertisement with changes in its copy or illustration (e.g. a foreign model used in an overseas version) is still a standardized advertisement as long as the same theme is maintained. This new and broadened definition can cloud the issue even more with the added element of subjectivity. Because standardization is a matter of degree rather than an all-or-nothing phenomenon, a more precise definitioon of standardized advertising, conceptually and operationally, would go a long way toward solving the confusion created by contradictory claims. Dewar's advertising is a good example of how difficult it is to state with certainty whether a certain advertisement is a standardized advertisement or not. After twenty lored to markets around the world. The format is the same in every country, it provides biographical information, hobbies, and philosophies to portray

the successful lifestyle of an entrepreneurial "life-achiever" who also happens to be a txypical and famous Dewar's drinker. Previously, Dewasr's overseas advertising used translations of American advertisements, but research revealed that the use of local personalities would communicate a stronger message. The localized profile advertisements used in Spain featured profiles of a Spanish author and a twentynine-year-old Spanish flight instructor and former hang-gliding champion. The Australian campaign gave Dewar's profiles of a thirty-three-year-old Melbourne entrepreneur, a jewelry designer, and a photojournalist. In Thailand, the advertisement featured a Bangkok architect. These campaigns were handled by the local Leo Burnett offices. The issue of advertising standardization, without doubt, has far reaching implications. If it is a valid strategy, international business managers should definitely take advantage of the accompanying benefits of decision simplification, cost reduction, and efficiency. On the other hand, if the premise of this approach is false, the indiscriminate application of standardized advertising in the marketplace will cause more harm than good since it can result in consumers misinterpreting the intended message. Consequently, the important function of advertising to facilitate a consumer's search process can be seriously impaired.

THREE SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT: There are three schools of thought on the issue of standardized advertising: 1.

Standardization

2.

Individualization

3.

Compromise

The standardization school, also known as the universal, internationalized, common, or uniform approach, questions the traditional belief in the heterogeneity of the market and the importance of the localized approach. This school of thought assumes that better and faster communication has forged a convergence of art, literature, media availability, tastes, thoughts, religious beliefs, culture, living conditions, language, and therefore, adevertising. Even when people are different, their basic physiological and psychological needs are still presumed to remain the same. Therefore, success in advertising depends on motivation pastterns rather than on geography. this belief is held by Elinder, Roostal, Fatt Strouse, and Levitt, among others. British Airways's image advertisements, which were designed by Saatchi and Saatchi to trumpet the newly sleek British Airways, have been cited as an example of a successful standardized campaign. The opposite view of the standardization school is the individualization school, also known as the nonstandardization, specificity, localization or customization approach. This conventional school of though holds that advertisers must particularly make note of the differences among countries (e.g. culture, taste, media, discretxionary income). These differences make it necessary to develop specific advertising programs to achieve impact in the local masrkets. Authorities sharing this view include Nielsen, Lenormand, Lipson and Lamont. A good illustration of the importance of individualization is the Shiseido case. That company, the world's third largest cosmewtic company, did poorly in its first attempt to penetrate the U.S. market because its advertisements featured only

Japanese models. Between these two extreme schools is the compromise school of thought. While recognizing local differences and cautioning against a wholesale or automatic use of standardization, this middle-of-the-road school holds that it may be possible, and in certain cases even desirable to use U.S. marketing techniques under some conditions. Those with this moderate view include Dunn, Keegan, Peebles, Ryans, and Vernon. Jain has proposed a frame work for determining marketing program standardization. Standardization is more practical and effective under these conditions: 1.

Markets are economically alike.

2.

Worldwide customers, not countries, are the basis for identifying the segments to serve.

3.

Countries have similar customer behaviour and lifestyle.

4.

The product has cultural compatibility across countries.

5.

There is a great degree of similarity in the firm's competitive position in different markets.

6.

The firm competes against the same adversaries with similar share positions in different markets.

7.

Product is industrial or high-tech (versus consumer product).

8.

Home-market-positioning strategy is meaningful in the host market.

9.

Countries have similar physical, political and legal environments.

10.

There are similar marketing infrastructures in the home and host

countries. 11.

Firms possess key managers who share a common world view.

12.

Strategic consensus exists among parent-subsidiasry managers.

13.

Authority for seting policies and allocating resources is centralized.

Keegnan provides a set of guidelines that can help in determining when it is appropriate to use standardized advertising. According to Keegan txhere are five international product and promotion strategies. The choice of strategy depends on such factors as cost, need, and use conditions. A particular product can be extended i.e. unchanged, if use conditions are uniform across masrkets. Likewise, a promotional campaign can be standardized or extended if consumer need for this pasrticular product is universal. As a company moves from the first strategy toward the last, there is a corresponding increase in cost. The first of the five strategies is one product, one message, worldwide. This strategy is feasible if both the need and use conditions are uniform across countries. Not many products satisfy these conditions, though Cokeand Pepsi are often cited as examples. Other examples include diamonds. Chivas Regalk scotch, and BMW automobiles. Mentioned in jest by some authorities are products that may even be more truly global, such as Israeli Uzi submachine guns, French Exocet missiles, Russian Kalashnikov rifles, and nuclear weapons. The second of the five strategies is product extension communicastions adaptastion. A product may be extxended to other countries because of uniform use conditions, but the promotional message very likely must be changed because needs vary. Toothpaste is used in the same manner every where but often for

different reasons. People in the north of England and in the French-speaking areas of Canada use tooth-paste primarily for breath control, making the appeal of fluoride toothpastes rather limited. Anheuser-Bursch and its partners market the same beer in many countries but customize their advertisements (based on American themes) for each national market. Product adaptation-communications extension is the third strategy. When use conditions differ but need remains constant across markets, modification of product but not promotion is necessary. Black and Decker, although wanting to globalize is power tools, must make several product adjustments of fit certain markets. The tools everywhere look the same on the outside. But inside it is another matter, especially for masrkets in which the variastions in electrical outlets and voltages require different circuits and cords. Dual adaptation is the fourth strategy. Both the product nd promotion have to be changed for a foreign market owing to vasriations in need as well as use conditions in various countries. Refrigerators made for the United States, for example, must be modified to accommodasted 220-volt and 50 HZ electricity overseas. The large refrigerator and its large freezer compartment do not appeal to people in countries where shopping for fresh food is done daily and where a refrigerator is used mainly for short term storasge. Additionally, with the high cost of electricity in virtually all markets outside the United States, the advertising appeal must be based on low electricity consumption, durability, reliability and compachness. Product invention is the last strategy. This strategy may have to be used if the

existing product is too expensive for foreign consumers. A brand new product with different freatures may have to be designed in order to make it affordable. For generations, Indians have called dhobis to collect dirty laundry from middle-class neighborhoods and wash it upon the rocks at the river. Seeing this as an opportunity for product invention. Whirlpool crop has appealed to young professional Indian couples who want Western-style automatic washing machines by offering wh at it calls the World Washer. Whirpool's compact washers have specially designed agitators that do not tangle saris, the flowing outfits wom by a large number of Indian women. Variations of the World Washer are also manufactured and sold in Brazil and Mexico, and there are plans to export them to other Asian and Latin American countries. Except for minor variations in the controls, the three versions asre nearly identical and sell for $270 to $ 650. The World Washer is a simple, affordable, basre-bones washer that does only eleven pounds of wash, or about one-half the capacity of the typical U.S. model. Keegan's guidelines, although useful, are quite general. Thus, one must consider other relevant factors and treat them explicity.

FEASIBILITY AND DESIRABILITY: For an international advertising manager, the decision is affected by his or her perception of whether it is "feasible" and "desirable" to implement standardization. In some cases, it may be feasible but not desirabale to use a stqandardized advertisement; in other cases, it may be desirable but not feasible to do so. The applicability of advertising standardization is a function of these two

conditions. The feasibility issue has to do with whether environmental restrictions or difficulties may prohibit the use of a standardized campaign. Three common problems are literacy (for print advertisements), local regulations, and media and agency availability. Because illiteracy adversely affects the comprehension of advertising copy, the text portion of an advertisement must frequently be minimized or replaced with pictures. Nevertheless, although pictures may appear to be an effective means of communicating with nonliterate market segments, there are problems in pictorial perception, and certain types of pictures asre likely to fail to communicate with nonliterate markets in developing countries. Therefore, international marketers should research their markets before attemping to communicate with them through pictures. Many countries have laws that place restrictions on the nature, content, and style of advertising messages. The Barboro cowboy was banned in England on the grounds that cowboy worship among children might induce them to take up smoking. So the company had to use noncowboys driving around Masrlboro country in a Jeep. Gerxmany's emphasis on fasir competition results in the prohibition of slander against competitors. As a result, the advertiser must be wary of using compasratives (e.g. better, superior)and superlatives (e.g. best, most durable). In China, Duracell battery commercials were taken off the air because the drumming bunny's endurance claim violated the rules that prohibit superlative claims and

comparative advertising. Likew3ise, Budweiser's "King of Beerts" slogan was found to be unacceptable. A multinational advertiser wishing to use a standardized advertising campaign needs to rely on an advertising agency with a worldwide network to coordinate the campaign across nations. Unfortunately, almost no agencies, regardless of swize, are in a postion to control local agencies overseas. In spite of this difficulty, a few multinasionals (e.g. Bayer, Colgaste-Palmolive) hasve decided to consolidate their global advertising at one agency. Ogilvy and Mather World wide, overseeing 272 offices, creat white on white TV commercial to sell laundry detergent in France and was later used to replace twenty different local campaigns in thirty countries. Similarly, IBM's Personal Systems Group awarded its entire sales-promotion business to Einson Freeman Promotional Campaigns, making it the first glob al br and to use a single agency. In must be noted that the use of a single agency to handle worldwide advertising, while resembling the standardization approach, does not necessarily mean that the approach is purely standardization. While Colgate-Palmolive believes that there is no need to reinvent a winning formula, the directive of IBM's Personal System Group is "do it once, replicate, and localize". According to one study, advertising agency executives believe that client presure will result in greater use of standardization. However, they also feel that client pressure and "saving money" asre among the least important reasons for standardization because it makes no sense to use a bad or unproven campaign just to save money. Local agencies tend to think that they can produce better

advertisements for their local markets and that creative impact should be the most important reason as to whether an advertisement should be standardized or localized. Degree of feasibility varies from country to country, facilitating the implementation of standardization in some countries while creating problems in others. Furthermore, an environment may change, permitting either more or less opportunity for standardization in the future. Therefore, feasibility is dependent on the situation and does not offer solid support for either of two extreme schools of thought. Two major criteria exist to judge the degree of desirability of a standardized advertisement. One of these is the amount of cost savings that might be achieved. Thus, standardization is desirable only when the derived saving in production cost of this type of advertisement is significant. Another criterion of desirability is consumer homogeneity, a major assumption of the uniform approach. If consumers were indeed homogeneous across countries, the debate would be resolved, since consumers could then be motivated in exactly the same way. Are consumers homogenous? The proponents of each school of thought have offered real-life examples that are subjective and highly judgemental. Consumers would be better served if the collection of empirical data were based on research designs that eliminate the effect of confounding factors. The results of the literature review of management responses, consumer characteristics, and consumer responses indicate that there is no theoretical or empirical evidence to support the standardization perspective in its present form.