mk364 - international advertising
INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING
THEME 5 - INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT
Introduction
This theme includes consideration of (international) marketing research generally, the communication process and patterns around the world and inevitably adaptation/standardisation, as with brands and branding. The management of international campaigns must also include some reference to (international) advertising agencies and marketing communications research specifically. The key word here is integration. That is to say, the notion that one can study advertising (whether international or not) in isolation from other elements of the communications mix, while not impossible, is improbable or undesirable.
Marketing communications
MARKETING, EXCHANGE AND CHANGE
Basic marketing theory is assumed. Marketing is said by many to be in a state of transition. Some might say marketing is no longer strategy but a requirement, a necessity. In particular the "information explosion" is upon us. The world wide dominance of the USA is waning somewhat and we have moved chronologically from American manufacturing and distribution dominance of the 1950s and 1960s through to cost-cutting and re-engineering in the 1990s.
1950s/60s - saw America's manufacturing base largely undisturbed with distribution systems developed to get produce out into the market place. Communications played a very minor role.
1970s - Japanese introduce quality as a basis for competition.
1980s - saw increased competition based around price in order to clear the market place.
1990s - has seen so far cost-cutting and re-engineering.
2000+ - will see the dominance of technology and communications.
Right now we see technological influence in terms of, for example, digital technology. For example Eastman/Kodak have digital photography. If this is introduced too fast then this would kill off the paper and chemicals business. If too slow then they miss out to the competition. Ultimately the consumer will control this not corporations. Levi and many others are on the internet. The consumer who has the technology can order direct. United Airlines offer tickets, hotel reservations, car hire - all on PC software. This is not good news for travel agents. As Don Schultz (1996) put it the key to this transition the transfer of information technology first into channels then into the consumer. Visually this looks something like:
HISTORICAL CURRENT 21st CENTURY
MARKETER MARKETER MARKETER
CHANNEL CHANNEL CHANNEL
MEDIA MEDIA MEDIA
CONSUMER CONSUMER CONSUMER
So in the past manufacturers have hooked into channels. For Schultz this is a big mistake. In the USA P&G have become captives of Wal Mart. Their failure in Brazil is linked to Wal Mart's failure there. The future appears to be in the realms of interactivity. Fragmentation has begun and the myth of company/corporate image is dissolving before us. Coca Cola has a thousand - maybe a billion - images world wide. The consumer is still small but is growing fast in terms of control.
THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS AND THE MARKETING/BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
The process is a pre-requisite to the study of international advertising and marketing. Most writers agree that the sender uses socio-cultural cues and symbols familiar to the receiver and selects media that are socio-culturally and legally apt. Factors affecting communication on this scale are: language - e.g. brand names; socio-cultural - e.g. colour, e.g. beliefs; economic - e.g. literacy, e.g. media; legal - e.g. local advertising regulations.
Marketing Communications and Communicators
The main concern is for the fundamental use of the very basic model of the (marketing) communication process used by many text book writers to suggest the availability of, at the very least, a framework for marketers to help manage their various forms of communication - whether mediated or interpersonal. Buttle (1995) provides a useful history/ancestry of communication (and marketing communication) theory and points to the lack of explicitness regarding theory. To quote Buttle: "Theory without practice may be barren and vacuous, but practice without theory risks being gratuitous and promiscuous " (p298).
This is central here since we are concerned with practitioners and what they can gain from the theoretical stances taken by writers - whether practitioners themselves or academicians - in order to provide a framework or even simply a basis from which to build the desired model.
Communications models
The commonest form by far and away in the text books, this deals with the problems of one way mass communication. To do this accurately is very difficult to achieve. This looks simple but in practice is far from simplicity. The basic model is shown below:
_noise______noise______
Source Encodes Signal Decodes Destination
(Communicator) (Message) (Receiver)
FEEDBACK
______noise______
Numerous models have been developed in this area which help further develop this general framework for understanding. Some are described below.
1. Step Flow or Personal Influence Models
These are very simplistic and usually involve one, two or multi step flows, opinion leaders/formers/followers and necessarily innovator theory and the strength of word-of-mouth.
Numerous models have been developed in this area which are said to provide general frameworks for understanding. Step Flow or Personal Influence "models" were established by the 1960s. Here the message is encoded, transmitted and decoded by the receiver but this then includes the role of the opinion leader and word of mouth with others to move from one to two to multi step flows of the message which necessarily mutates and where the meaning intended by the sender can be either enriched or changed in some other way. This can be illustrated in the following way:
Target 1
Mass Media / Target 2
Target 4 (Opinion
Leader)
Target 3
.
Target 1
Mass Media / Target 2
Target 4 (Opinion
Leader)
Target 3
.
2 . Innovation Theory
The innovation curve (Rogers, as early as 1962) is well covered in basic marketing theory and texts and should be known to the reader already. This is shown below:
Early Early Late
Innovators Adopters Majority Majority Laggards
------
2.5% 13.5% 34% 34% 16%
The process of adoption and diffusion of innovations is theoretical and the curve need not be normal as depicted, but can be skewed depending upon the makeup of the population or sample. The importance of innovators and early adopters in terms of word of mouth communications should not be underestimated.
As with all stage models each stage is sequential, hierarchical and in this sense is open to the usual criticism of stages being left out, or out of sequence etc. This model is, however, useful from the marketing communications perspective with regard to objectives and strategy (for example providing persuasive information through a particular media vehicle). Rogers five stages are:
i. Knowledge - the DMU becomes aware of the innovation but has nothing to go on. The opportunity is there to provide (persuasive) information through channels such as the media.
ii. Persuasion - the perceived characteristics of the innovation become important as do the messages from the media, opinion leaders etc.
iii. Decision - attitudes are formed and a decision to adopt or reject the innovation made. Communication is clearly important in this.
iv. Implementation - the DMU needs to know how to access the innovation for trial if not rejected and communication has its role to play in this.
v. Confirmation - post-trial the innovation will either continue or be delayed or be rejected. it may well be re-adopted or rejected continuously. The DMU can be assisted in this process by persuasive communication, helping dispel worries or negativity and reaffirmation of the original decision with post-behavioural consolidation.
3. Hierarchy of Effects
When a message is sent to an audience it is assumed that the audience responds in some way. There are many possible responses which can be grouped into three distinct categories:- Awareness; Attitude; Behaviour. All messages attempt to influence at least one of these responses. Hierarchy of Effects therefore states that a consumer must pass through a series of stages from unawareness to purchase and brand loyalty. A number of "models" have been developed. Copley (2004) provides a useful précis shown below:
Model Cognitive Affective Conative
______
AIDA Attention Interest, Desire Action
(St. Elmo Lewis, 1900)
AIDAS Attention Interest, Desire Action, Satisfaction
(Sheldon, 1911)
AIDCA Attention Interest, Desire, Action
(Kitson, 1921) Conviction
AIDA Attention Interest, Desire Action
(Strong, 1925)
DAGMAR Awareness, Conviction Action
(Colley, 1961) Comprehension
Lavidge and Steiner Awareness, Knowledge Liking, Preference, Purchase
(1961) Conviction
Adoption Awareness Interest, Evaluation Trial, Adoption
(Rogers, 1962)
HOWARD AND Attention, Comprehension Attitude, Intention Purchase
SHETH, 1969)
On line info Exposure, Attention Yielding, Acceptance Retention
(Hofacker, 2000) Coprehension, Perception
These deal then with the think-feel-do sequence of events regarding the cognitive (awareness, knowledge), the affective (interest/liking, desire/preference/conviction) and the behavioural (action/purchase). They are subjected to the usual criticism that is applied to stage models but also that knowing the level of communication input in order to facilitate change is difficult to measure. Until this is known an optimal communications mix cannot be devised and implemented.
4. Kellman's Source Characteristics Model
Fill (1995) includes this model which of course tries to break down the ways in which sources obtain and retain their characteristics which can be used in message strategy. Kellman's Source Characteristics Model again dates back some time (to the 1960s) and deals with credibility, attractiveness and power. This clearly isolates:
- credibility (for objectivity , relevancy, expertise, trustworthiness etc.)
- attractiveness (through identification with the source)
- power (when the source can reward and punish and therefore involves compliance)
High credibility is not necessarily the most effective in certain situations as might be expected. The use of a high credibility source is of less importance when receivers have a neutral position. This is clearly plausible with regard to low and high involvement and where risk is involved. Everyday products like insurance can be promoted in this way.
Empathy or correlation between source and recipient means that the receiver will find the source attractive and a relationship can then develop where the latter sees him/herself in the situation depicted (say) through slice of life advertising i.e. relates to it, identifies with it. and the problems it solves. Many examples exist. In the UK the Oxo Family would be typical.
Power is more easily seen in personal communications situation where both the stick and carrot are in evidence - expense accounts, type of car allowance, bonus rewards and penalties etc.
5. Model of (Mass) Communication.
For this to be of any practical use in the real world of course it has to aid the marketer in terms of effective and efficient communications. Fundamentally, the idea is for the communicator to be in a position to understand the (target) recipient well enough to be able to encode desired messages with a high degree of certainty that there will be no "noise" in the system, the task being to understand how decoding will occur, the transfer of pure, unadulterated meaning. It is of course recognised that the marketer is not the only player in this game. The target is another player but other influences are part of the process - the bullet theory (Schramm) or hypodermic effect (Klapper) having been rejected for some time with an emerging preference for interactive and integrative rather than linear thought. Buttle (1995) provides a clear analysis of commonalties within the various representations of the communication process, identifying four such commonalties and concluding that marketing communications theory fails to draw on the very disciplines it should. Looking at the family/household, institutional and cultural levels (and not just the individual level). Buttle concludes that much is missing from the process. Similarly the tendency to focus on individual messages is clearly misleading to say the least. Cumulative impact, shared meaning, derived symbolic meaning and not least meaning derived from non-promotional marketing and other variables that are bound to have some sort of effect. Belief in the notion of the passive audience is long gone and the exposure - audience uses/gratification debate (or content does something to people as opposed to people doing something to the content) seems to have been won by those who favour the interactive approach. The notion of source intent is clearly not without problems. Linked to this is co-orientation. To avoid problems with fidelity the communicator can opt for a closed text to avoid misreading, misunderstanding and so on which of course ignores the social and other contexts people necessarily operate in.
Buttle therefore condemns the usual marketing communications theory as ill informed and narrowly focused. The danger in educational/learning terms is that lecturers think that this is what students need to be practitioners, to understand and bring about the usual cognitive/affective/behavioural sequence in the short term - yet all of this is steeped in 1940s and 50s thought with many important parameters unaccounted for and ignored. In a sense one can argue that such parameters are accounted for within the notion of 'realm of understanding/field of experience', one cannot escape the feeling of opportunities being lost through not pursuing greater understanding of such effects.
The marketing communicator, it could be argued, has a lot to be gained from ‘the participation of sociologists, anthropologists, semioticians, cognitive scientists, even psychoanalysts. This qualitative shift in the recruitment of consultants and experts undoubtedly suggests a new phase in the attempts to penetrate the secrets of the black box’, Mattelart and Chanan pp170-1. (1991). For example, the intimate relationship between the two processes of buyer behaviour and marketing communications is well recognised in the traditional marketing literature. For the most part these follow the rational/cognitive/systematic/reasoned consumer processing model, although to be fair to Shimp (1997) this text does at least try to introduce the fun/fantasies/feelings of the hedonic, experiential model after Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) who were some of the first to challenge the traditional view of consumption, particularly from the (marketing) research methodological standpoint.
Similarly, language is used as a model for all forms of cultural discourse and therefore semiologists borrow from the structural linguists (principally de Saussure) of the first half of this century whereby language is seen as a whole system of rules governing the selection and combination of different signs out of which meaning is produced. Since the transfer of meaning is fundamental to marketing communications, there is much to be gained for the marketing communicator from its study and use.