Marketing Communications

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©Copyright 2003 Quirk's Marketing Research Review (www.quirks.com). All rights reserved.
November, 2003

Finding ideas that travel

What to look for in developing global brand advertising

By: Chuck Young
Editor’s note: Charles Young is CEO of Ameritest/CY Research, Albuquerque, N.M.
In broad terms, there are four potentially competing business objectives that must be kept in balance as a multinational corporation manages its international advertising.
1. Brand-building by speaking with one voice.
2. Economies of scale in creative production.
3. Maximizing local effectiveness.
4. Speed of implementation.
The main reason to do advertising at all is to build a brand. A global brand is one that stands for the same thing pretty much everywhere. While this does not necessarily require that identical advertising executions be used everywhere, it does require that the advertising communicates the same meaning, in terms of strategic messages and brand values, everywhere. In short, the brand needs to speak with one voice.
Advertising has to operate within given financial constraints. In general, money saved in the cost of producing advertising executions can be put towards media buys to ensure that target audiences actually get an opportunity to see the advertising. The second objective, therefore, is to achieve economies of scale in the cost of creative production by re-using the same executions with minimal changes from one country to another. On the surface, this objective appears to line up with the first. In reality, as we have seen in our global pre-testing business, the same execution can work differently in different countries.
The most efficient advertising is advertising that makes each member of the target audience feel like the commercial is a personalized message sent directly to them. This is advertising the target audience is most likely to pay attention to, most likely to find relevant and emotionally engaging,... [continues]

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