IAP: NATURE OF GLOBAL ADVERTISING

Meaning and definition of Global Advertising

The word advertising comes from the Latin word ‘advertere’ meaning ‘to turn the minds towards.’ The definition of advertising is evolving just as the practice is undergoing constant changes. For instance, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Albert Lasker, who today is generally regarded as the father of modern advertising in some quarters, owned a prominent advertising agency, Lord & Thomas. At the time, he defined advertising as “salesmanship in print, driven by a reason why,” (McDonough, 1993: F4). But that was long before the advent of radio, television, or the Internet. The nature and scope of the business world, and advertising, were quite limited. A century later, our planet is a far different place. The nature and needs of business have changed, and so have the concept and practice of advertising.

Today, many definitions of advertising abound. Journalists, for example, might define it as a communication, public relations, or persuasion process; business people see it as a marketing process; economists and sociologists tend to focus on its economic, societal, or ethical significance. And some consumers might define it simply as a nuisance. Each of these perspectives has some merit, but for now we’ll focus on a few definitions that had attracted international acclaims:

Arens (2008:7) sees advertising as a ‘structured and composed non personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods, services, and ideas) by identified sponsors through various media’. This definition is similar to that of the American Marketing Association which viewed “advertising as any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services by an identified sponsor”.

William J. Stanton observed that, “Advertising consists of all the activities involved in presenting to an audience a non-personal, sponsor-identified, paid-for message about a product or organization.”

The above definitions are similar to that of Dominick (2007:321), which says that ‘advertising is any form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services, usually paid for by an identified sponsor’

From the foregoing, we can see that advertising is the process of creating awareness about goods, ideas, products, and services. However, when the focus is on markets across the shore of a single country or nation, it is referred as international or global advertising.

Global (International) Advertising is the type of advertising undertaken by those companies, which operate in more than one country, known as ‘multinational’ companies. Global advertising therefore, entails dissemination of a commercial message to target audiences in more than one country. Exporters, generally advertise their products and services in foreign countries, where ready markets are available. Air India and other airlines, and multinational companies advertise their products and services all over the world. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are advertised globally, as the sales are almost all over the world. International advertising is extremely expensive, involving the services of professional advertising agencies in different countries. Global advertising is expensive because it is a form of communication that takes place in multiple cultures that differ in terms of values, communication styles, and consumption patterns.

In a nutshell, global advertising is structured and composed non personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about international products (goods, services, and ideas) by identified multinational sponsors through various foreign media. These means, global advertising covers business activity involving advertisers and the advertising agencies that create adverts and buy media in different countries.

Features of Global Advertising

Going by the definitions above, one can highlight the following features of global advertising:

Global Advertising is, first of all, a type of communication. It is actually a very structured form of applied communication, employing both verbal and nonverbal elements that are composed to fill specific space and time formats determined by the sponsor.

Second, Global advertising is a non personal form of communication which is typically directed to groups of people rather than to individuals across international boundaries. These people could be consumers, who reside in different countries and buy products like Close-up, Coke, Cars, etc for their personal use. Or they might be business people in different national locations who would buy large quantities of Close-up for resale in their stores.

Most global advertising are paid for by their sponsors (multinational companies). Coca Cola for instance pays the newspaper or the radio or TV station to carry the adverts you read, see, and hear. However, note that some sponsors don’t have to pay for their adverts because of their nonprofit status. Likewise, a poster on a school bulletin board promoting a dance is not paid for, but it is still an advert—a structured, non personal, persuasive communication.

Of course, most global advertising are intended to be persuasive—to win international converts to a global product, service, or idea. Although, some adverts, such as legal announcements, are intended merely to inform, not to persuade; they can still be classified as global advertising when the target audience are located in different nations of the world, because they satisfy all the other requirements of the definition.

A global advert identifies its sponsor. This seems obvious. The sponsor wants to be identified, or why pay to advertise? One of the basic differences between advertising and public relations, though, is that many PR activities (for example, publicity) aren’t openly sponsored while advertising does.

Finally, global advertising reaches its target audience through international or foreign mass media. Generally, an advertising medium is any paid means used to present an advert to its target audience. Thus, we have radio advertising, television advertising, newspaper adverts, and so on. When an expatriate tells a nationale how good coke tastes, that’s sometimes called word-of-mouth (WOM) global advertising. Although WOM is a communication medium, it’s not an advertising medium. It’s not structured, or openly sponsored, or paid for.

Historically, advertisers have used the traditional mass media (the plural of medium)—radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, and billboards—to send their messages. But today technology enables advertising to reach the target audiences efficiently through a variety of addressable media (for example, direct mail) and interactive media (like the Internet and kiosks). Advertisers also use an increasing variety of other nontraditional media such as shopping carts, blimps, aero-advert (when air flight takes messages about a particular international brand from one country to another as it travels around the world) and videocassettes to find their audience. The planning, scheduling, and buying of international advertisements should therefore be thoroughly handled as it is key to the success of any global advertising campaign.

Historical Development of Global Advertising

The beginnings of global advertising can be traced back to the end of World War II, (Ortiz-Sotomayor, 2007). At that time, European nations increased international trade. A decade later, some attention had shifted to Latin American countries as US corporations led the way in looking for external markets. In the 1970’s, non- US multinationals began overseas expansion, hoping to mirror the success of the US corporations. The globalization debate received an impetus in 1983 after Harvard Business School Professor Ted Levitt argued in his book The Globalization of Markets that the same products and services could be sold in the same way everywhere. Meanwhile advertising agencies re-positioned themselves to serve the clients with more emphasis on international expansion and global marketing. In the 1990s the collapse of the Communist regimes in central and Eastern Europe opened up markets filled with consumers eager for new products and services. Since that decade, markets and clients have increasingly become more global and more complex, and the importance of global advertising has increased exponentially. For instance, “in 1960, international billings constituted only 6% of the gross revenues of the top ten US advert agencies. By 1991, this percentage had increased to almost 60%” (Ducoffe 1998: 303). In recognition of the situation, advertisers’ associations such as the US Association of National Advertisers and the UK Institute of Practitioners in Advertising have created global marketing committees in the last decade to help their members share problems and find solutions.

This rapid evolution has combined with what I think has been the most dramatically changing dimension of the advertising industry: the introduction of the Internet. Both have contributed to the birth of a new advertising environment. This paper will attempt to trace the logics of advertising within this changing environment.

Nature of Global Advertising

The nature and purpose of advertising differ from one industry to another and/or across situations. The targets of an organization’s advertising efforts often vary, as do advertising’s role and function in the marketing program. One advertiser may seek to generate immediate response or action from the customer; another may want to develop awareness or a positive image for its product or service over a longer period.

Advertising message is of certain content, which is to be conveyed to a recipient. It is a part of mass public communication and a specific message in the process of mass communication characterized by: its commercial character (it is created and published to initiate and guide the behavior of potential consumers at buying certain products and 2) to be distributed to recipients through means of mass communication (Milovanović, 1997). The content of an advertising message, regardless of whether it is aimed at domestic or foreign markets must be evaluated according to its contribution to sale results. Advertising message for global markets, as both product and activity, is distributed through different means of mass communication; it endures strong competition and comes in contact with those to whom it isn’t aimed. Such message should be repetitive, general and must stimulate recipient’s behavior.

There are not a big number of advertising messages, which are able to draw or constrain attention of recipients to a certain product. It is mainly the case with some commercial that have been going on for a prolonged time and which can be recognized with customers and general public and are based on advertising appeal as a carrying idea or theme of the advertising message. The aim of the advertiser is to discover the real appeal and to evaluate the role it plays in the overall campaign. Aiming of the content of advertising message at activating one or more motifs through the appeal one can turn a motive into a necessity for certain products or services. One should recognize positive and negative promotion appeals. Mainly a positive appeal points out the benefits which a buyer will acquire if he buys a certain product (saving, rationality, purity etc.). Negative appeals point out possible damages of inconveniences, which can be absorbed if a certain product is bought and used. Use of advertising appeal in stimulating motives in consumers is often criticized since it is considered to create tension and generates needs for whose fulfillment there are no real possibilities.

source:National Open University of Nigeria