International Aspects of Advertising

There are numerous ways to approach international advertising by hitting on aspects of global culture such as movies (such as big Hollywood productions seen all over the world), people’s passion for sports, (many brans, like Pepsi, have successfully exploited the global obsession with football – the world’s most popular sport), youth culture and music (another way of uniting audiences across the globe, coke was one of the first brands to use this approach with their “I want to teach the world to sing” campaign.  On the other hand, advertisers have successfully advertised on a global scale by celebrating the cultural diversity that exists in the world (such as HSBC) or the ethnic diversity of its customers (Benetton).

Successful global campaigns will communicate the fundamental truths or insight about human nature, this needs to happen because advertisers need to pin down what it is that unites us as human beings, what do we all have in common?

Many successful campaigns have created their own unique “Brand Space” which isn’t tied to any particular place or time, but is owned by the brand, this isn’t very easy because it is essential to avoid using any iconography or use of language which are not shared across cultures. Successful examples of this inclue the iPod advertising. In a series of ads, Huggies created a brand space where children from many ethnic backgrounds have fun playing together in a specially created, colourful word. These ads united parents from all over the world as they all share the same please in watching their children have fun.

Coca Cola created a fantastic brand space through the use of icons and symbols to generate emotion with their famous Christmas ads “Caravan” and “Convoy” by evoking a highly appealing magical world, which brought back the childhood excitement of Christmas.