There are three basic schools of thought regarding advertising standardization. First one is standardization approach which assumes that due to faster communication there is a convergence of markets and that costumer are becoming increasingly similar. Second is an adaptation approach which point to cultural differences and conclude that advertising must be adapted and the last one compromise approach which recognizes local differences but also that some degree of advertising standardization is possible.
Standardized Approach
Standardized or global advertising approach is practice of advertising the same brand or same product in the same way everywhere around the world. It looks for similarity across countries and segments to catch up a common thread to capitalize on adverting. That opinion shows that human needs and emotions are the same in everywhere. In addition this communication and transportation, technology, create a global market and desires of costumer around the world become homogenized. Global advertising focuses on localization and standardization of the advertising company from a marketing strategy perspective without costumer regarding.
There are many advantages of advertising standardization. The most important advantage is cost saving. The second advantage of using standard advertisement is dealing costumers by establishing a common image around the world. Third of all, it provides to exploit good ideas that are difficult to find worldwide and finally, it helps organizational management in term of planning, control and coordination. The numbers of research are showed that huge number of company use standardization in their advertisement.
On the other hand, global advertisement is not always necessary. For example Coco-cola, Pepsi do some modification to accommodate local norms on their advertisement. Moreover Levi’s jean is a global brand too and it uses localized advertisement.
Adaptaion Approach
The adaptation advertising is the opposite view compared to the standardization advertisement. Advertisers need to consider barriers to standardization such as media culture, taste, economic and availability considerations. Those differences it is necessary to develop adapted advertising programmes. Some believe that advertising is more difficult to standardize than the other elements of the marketing mix. For example, advertising is more resistant to uniformitarian than are products and brands. Advertising is more dependent on cultural influence than other marketing elements. Reason of these characteristics, the visual and verbal parts of advertising are in particular sensitive and use of local language, models and scenery increases the probability for the advertisement to be effective.
It has been suggested that multi country advertising campaigns are employed by markets mainly when a brand is significant level of circumstance to exit. The brand has to modified in to commonalities of consumption patterns and psycho-graphic, cultural, economic and sociological factors among its target costumer in each country where is marketed. Multinational campaigns are complex because it needs many strategies at the same time for many people and many companies. Advertisement modified can run two ways. One of them is single country development and the second one is multi country development.
Compromise Approach
The compromise advertising is a middle-of-the-road that not just recognizes local differences, but also some degree of advertising standardization is not only possible but also desirable. One way to look at the compromise is to view the standardization versus adaptation as a continuum. It was believed that the difference between adaptation and standardization is in degree rather than kind and that the difference between them should be seen as a continuum. On the one side are companies with highly decentralized, multi-domestic operations and products. On the other side are the absolutely globally advertised companies and brands. In the middle are companies that increasingly standardize products or brands, but still adapt to local differences. A variant of the compromise advertisement is the contingency perspective that suggests that there are factors within and outside the firm that determine the approach to advertising strategies. The contingency models identify the variables that potentially can affect the standardization decision. In recent times a huge number of company use this type of advertising strategy.