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Ad Appeals
Markham Competition
The Impact of Cultural and Market Distance on International
Advertising: An Content Analysis of Ad Appeals in Ads from US, Japan and Korea
Yoo-Kyung Kim
and
Hao-chieh Chang
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
Syracuse University
215 University Place
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100
Tel: (315)422-0609
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Submitted to the International Communication Division for AEJMC,
April 1, 1996
The Impact of Cultural and Market Distance on International
Advertising: An Content Analysis of Ad Appeals in Ads from US, Japan and Korea
Abstract
This study examined the imapct of cultural and market distance
on ad appeals of international advertising by identifying variables related to
cultural characteristics and market conditions. A content analysis of 234
magazine advertisements for common multinational brands was performed. Results
showed that US ads were more likely to use hard-sell appeal and Korean
soft-sell. Similar finding was found for Japanese/Korean ads comparison. In
addition, comparative appeal was found significantly more ofen in US ads than
its Japanese and Korean counterparts. Data from concept mapping were used to
validate the statistical analysis and a consistent result was found.
The Impact of Cultural and Market Distance on International
Advertising: An Content Analysis of Ad Appeals in Ads from US, Japan and Korea
Introduction
The development of cross-border communications, global media and
advanced technologies has led to a single global marketplace. Such a trend
seemed to generate the driving force for the demand for universal brand and
uniform advertising within the multinational arena. However, psychological or
perceived barriers between country borders still remain. Regional differences
have resulted in a variety of different cultural and socio-economic models which
in turn have impacted the configuration of multinational networking in all types
of marketing communications. They came to recognize that markets around the
world are moving from mass products to specially tailored products designed to
meet highly differentiated consumer needs in a variety of cultural settings
(Homma, 1991). This transition further prompted Transnational Advertising
Agencies (TNAA) to become motivated in communicating effectively with consumers
from a wide variety of cultures on behalf of their global clients. The goal of
TNAA is to develop international advertising campaigns to communicate their
global clients' message to consumers (Mueller, 1987). Thus, their immediate
tasks focused on the key question of devising advertising campaign performance
for foreign markets: should the targets be considered as a separate individual
consumer or as collective global consumers?
To explore this question, this study will examine cultural and
market-related factors as major possible explanatory variables for the diverse
performance of advertising campaigns in international contexts. Specifically,
the study will focus on the impact of these factors on the type of advertising
appeals employed in transnational advertising campaigns. In addition, this
study will also examine how cultual distance and market distance between
cultural groups influence the practice of standardization versus localization in
international advertising.
Conceptualization
Cultural Distance
As Samovar, Porter and Jain (1981) proposed, the degree of
influence culture has on intercultural communication situations is a function of
the dissimilarity or distance between cultures. Cultural distance is concerned
with the degree of dissimilarity between message senders and message receivers.
So, as the cultural distance is similar - socially, politically,
psychographically and demographically - the more the communication repertoire of
behavior is likely to be.
Based on the concept of cultural distance, Mueller (1987)
compared ads from U.S., Japan and Germany in order to examine the relative
degree of standardization of ads between countries. She found that overall
usage of standardized campaigns was more common for messages transferred between
Western nations than for messages transferred between Western and Eastern
nations. This suggests that the cultural distance between Western countries
tends to be less than the one between Western countries and Eastern countries.
It further suggests that a standardized advertising campaign is more common
between countries where there is less cultural distance.
Cultural Scale
Based on the concept of cultural distance, Samovar et al(1981)
suggested the use of a measuring scale assesses the variation of cultural
distance between cultures. The amount of difference between two cultural groups
can be seen to depend on the relative social uniqueness of the two groups. Such
a social uniqueness is qualitatively and subjectively determined by a number of
cultural factors which are subject to variation: physical appearance, religion,
philosophy, social attitude, language, heritage, basic conceptualizations of
self and the universe, and degree of technological development (Samovar et al,
1981).
Although this scale is rather unrefined, it does provide
insights into the effect of cultural differences. For example, from this scale,
a maximum difference exists between Western and Asian cultures. In contrast, an
example nearer the center of the scale is the difference between American
culture and German culture, where less variation is found.
Although the concept of cultural distance seems so basic, its
conceptual model and scale are valuable in a sense that they, albeit roughly,
provide the standard guidelines measuring the degree of similarity/dissimilarity
between cultures. Samovar et al (1981) provides a cultural distance scale to
measure cultural characteristics between societies or countries.
Cultural characteristics
More than three decades ago, McLuhan (1964) noted that
advertisements are the richest and most faithful daily reflections that any
society ever made of its entire range of activities. Lazer et al (1987)
suggested that while Western communication appeals tend to be more verbal, with
a logical direct message, Japanese appeals are more emotional, suggestive and
indirect.
One of the earliest cross-cultural studies (Lenormand, 1964),
maintained that cultural differences such as basic customs, religious beliefs
and living standards are too great to overcome. In the early 1970s, Britt
(1974), Green and Langeared (1975), and Green, Cunningham and Cunningham (1975)
reported that because consumers evaluated the attributes of the same product
differently across cultures, this fact should be reflected in different
advertising approaches.
Other studies have compared Eastern and Western cultural
traditions or standards to assess major differences in ads (Hong et al, 1987;
Mueller, 1987, 1991, 1992; Sriram et al, 1991; Chang, 1991). They argued that
distinct cultural characteristics are embedded in advertising appeals, which are
used in varying degrees to convey advertising messages of various cultures :
these are emotional and cognitive orientations, soft-and-hard sell appeals,
power distance, individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. Martensen
(1989) and Kweon et al (1992) added the concept of contextual culture and time
perception, from which clear difference between East and West was found.
As such, criteria for cultural dimensions had mixed agreement
and support among researchers primarily because these are never completely
exclusive and independent. However, Zandpour and his associates(1994)
systematically restructured the criteria for cultural characteristics into four
distinct categories: Individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty
avoidance and perception of time. The representativeness of these cultural
dimensions has already been tested and substantiated in terms of whether it was
able to explain differences in consumer behavior (Lynn, Zinkhan and Harris,
1993). Thus, although there are more cultural characteristics that may be
relevant to advertising, these four characteristics seemed to be the most
parsimonious criteria used to classify the different patterns of advertising
expressions among cultures. Therefore, the present study will build on Zandpour
et al's cultural criteria by examining the following cultural characteristics
which have been utilized as the common denominators in cross-cultural studies of
advertising: Individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance
and perception of time.
Individualism-Collectivism. Individualism-collectivism has been
suggested to be the major dimension of cultural variability identified by
theorists across disciplines (Zandpour et al, 1994). Individualism is defined
as "a situation in which people are supposed to look after themselves and their
immediate family only," whereas collectivism is defined as a "situation in which
people belong to in-groups or collectivities which are supposed to look after
them in exchange for loyalty (Chang, 1991; Hofstede and Bond, 1984). The
emphasis in individualistic societies is on a person's initiative and
achievement, relying on factual information for decision-making as opposed to
seeking group harmony and consensus (Zandpour et al,1994; Gudykunst, Ting-Toomy
& Stewart, 1985). Further, the individualistic society emphasizes the
articulation of messages, whereas the collectivistic society is characterized as
nonverbal and less articulate in communication (Gudykunst & Kim, 1984; Zandpour
et al, 1994). Western societies are mainly regarded as individualistic
societies as opposed to Eastern ones which are collectivistic (Frith et al,
1991, Hofstede, 1984).
Individualistic societies are more likely to put more emphasis
on individual differences or strength in argument, and instead put less emphasis
on shared feeling and consonance among persons when they process persuasive
message such as advertising. Ogilvy (1985) asserted that in an individualistic
society such as US, advertising should be written not to multiple readers, but
to single individual reader. He argued that it is because when people read
advertising copy, they are not together but merely alone. In line with this,
Wolburg and Talyor (1994) explored the depth and the ways that American
television advertising reflected individualism. They further found that
regardless of the nature of the product, advertising appealed heavily to
self-interests.
Power Distance. Power distance is concerned with the
relationship between authority and social perception (Hofstede, 1991). In
high-power distance cultures, people tend to obey the recommendations of
authority figures such as parents, teachers and bosses in comparison to cultures
that have little tolerance for authority (Hofstede, 1991; Zandpour et al, 1994).
In this culture, people tend to emphasize the basis of facts and reasoning.
Zandpour et al's (1994) study confirmed that power distance was
a significant factor affecting advertising difference among cultures. They
found that high power distance culture tended to use more celebrities with
various kinds of authorities and rely on more psychological appeals, compared to
low power distance culture. Sriram et al (1991) and Frith and Wesson (1991)
also substantiated the influence of power distance on advertising. In
particular, Sriram et al (1991) found that from a discriminant analysis, power
distance was a significant determinant for clustering 40 countries into six
groups within each of which standardization could be attempted.
Uncertainty Avoidance. Uncertainty avoidance is the degree to
which people prefer structured to unstructured situations, and ranges from
extremely rigid to relatively flexible (De Mooiji, 1994; Hofstede & Bond, 1984).
Cultures with high levels of uncertainty avoidance need to rely more on formal
rules, absolute truth and advice of those whom they consider to be experts
(Hostede, 1980; Rubin 1992; Zandpour et al, 1994).
Learning by trial and error and experimentation, searching for
innovation, and acceptance of a high level of mobility, all express an easy
attitude toward insecurity. Instead of engaging in decision-making, people
avoiding uncertainties are more likely to rely on rules, precedents and
patterns. They tend to avoid making assessment and assumptions, and do not like
to publish or discuss their plans before these are complete (De Mooiji, 1994).
This cultural value is clearly reflected in advertising, than any other values,
because it is more closely related to communication patterns and
comprehensibilites of messages.
Perception of Time. Different cultures have different concepts
of time. Time is used as a measuring instrument and a means of controlling
human behavior by setting deadlines and objectives (De Mooiji, 1994). Although
it might be devised only from Western perspectives, Hall (1990) argued that time
is tangible; like an object, it can be saved, spent, found, lost and wasted. He
describes this way of handling time as monochronic as opposed to polychronic.
People from monochronic cultures tend to do one thing at a time; they are
organized and methodical, and their workdays are structured to allow them to
complete one task after another. Polychrnoic people on the other hand tend to
do many things simultaneously. Polychronic cultures rely more on implicit and
nonverbal information as opposed to monochronic cultures that seek explicit
communication (Hall, 1983; Zandpour et al, 1994). In particular, Zandpour et
al's (1994) study found that monochronic cultures (e.g., North America and
European countries) with linear perception of time tended to rely more on
direct, rational, argumentative and explicit advertising appeals, as opposed to
polychronic culture with nonlinear perception of time.
Market Distance
As Johansson (1994) argued, culture alone does not explain the
unique nature of a country's advertising. To develop a deeper understanding, it
is reasonable to investigate market conditions related to advertising industry,
which might play a role as another explanatory variable for ad dissimilarity.
Market distance is defined as dissmilarity or difference between markets in
terms of market conditions which are generally defined as visible or invisible
factors directly or indirectly related to economic market or relevant
environment in a country (Schiffman and Kanuk, 1991; Kotler, 1984). In general,
these focus on six broad areas : 1) institutional arrangements (e.g.,
advertisers and ad agency structure, Johansson, 1994), which suggests that the
institutional setup leads to the creative freedom in advertising; 2) legal
environment or government regulation (Cutler, 1992; Boddewyn, 1988; Lorimore,
1979; Miracle, 1968), which suggests that the extent of government control for
advertising results in creative diversities; 3) media characteristics (Rau and
Preble, 1987; Sorenson and Weichman, 1975; Lenormand, 1964), which summarizes
that media-related factors affect the development of international campaign; 4)
product positioning (Jones, 1992; Moriarity and Duncan, 1990; Sorrenson and
Weichman, 1975), which asserts that products are diversely positioned according
to consumers' use and gratifications in an international context; 5) different
product categories (Chang, 1991; Cutler, 1991; Stern, Krugman and Resnik, 1981)
and the Product Life Cycle (Miracle et al, 1991; Chang, 1990), for which
different message strategies are required.
As a step toward more specific approach out of the above listed
categories, Zandpour et al (1994) identified and examined seven elements related
to advertising industry environment. Under the category of institutional
arrangements, they expanded it with advertising expenditure per capita, presence
of US adverisers, advertising personnel shortage and US advertising agencies.
Under the category of legal environment, government control was included. Under
the product category, they identified the type of product. And the type of
commercial breaks was indentified as major operational variable of media
characteristics. These categories seem to be more specific and exclusive in a
sense that they focused more directly on advertising industry-related
classifications.
Therefore, their approach will be used as a conceptual building
block to examine market conditions in the present study. Only categories
relevant to this study will be used as explanatory variables for the difference
of advertising. Among them, commercial break, which was originally used in
their study was excluded because this study will focus on print medium.
Advertising Expenditure Per Capita. In industrialized countries,
consumers have greater per capita income with which to purchase goods, and the
marketplace is more consumer oriented. Thus, it is natural to assume that in
more industrialized countries firms employ advertising more extensively to
improve or hold their competitive position in the marketplace. Cutler (1991)
found that in countries where advertising expenditures per capita are high,
there are more extensive use of hard-sell advertising techniques to cut through
the clutter of advertising. Zandpour et al (1994) demonstrated that greater per
capita advertising expenditures was associated with higher levels of advertising
sophistication and consumer acceptance of advertising as a legitimate medium.
Presence of US Advertisers. Since US advertising has by far the
largest ad expenditure and has dominated the world market, their advertising
policies and strategies could influence the advertising of a target country.
Levitt (1983) said that if they are looking for a standardization approach in
advertising message, the number of US advertisers in target countries may be a
major indicator to consider. Zandpour et al (1994) found that the presence of
US advertisers was a significant factor affecting advertising informativeness
and style among countries.
Advertising Personnel Shortage. Advertising personnel is
concerned with the potential of human resources in advertising industry. This
potential might determine the quality of advertising in a market. Zandpour et
al (1994) argued that availability of skilled advertising personnel in a market
could independently impact the quality of the creative work in that market.
This might be greatly different from country to country. In fact, Shao and Hill
(1992), and Zandpour et al(1994) found that there was a significant difference
in availability of such skills around the world. In particular, Zandpour et al
(1994) found that access to a ready supply of advertising personnel - measured
by the total number of areas among the fifteen advertising professions that were
short in each country - meant more informative, argumentative, symbolic and less
dramatic advertising.
US Advertising Agencies. US advertising agencies exist almost
ubiquitously. They are primarily taking charge of controlling advertising
strategy, policy and management in accordance with the guidelines from US-based
headquarters. For the most part, advertising for US brands tends to be
controlled by US advertising agencies even in countries outside US. Often they
tend to follow the standardized guidelines set by US headquarters especially for
economic reasons. Zandpour et al (1994) found that television commercial in
markets with a strong presence of American advertising agencies were more
factual and did not have any reasoning or conclusions. Therefore, it is
expected that the more US advertising agencies there are within a country, the
more advertising become Americanized and standardized.
Government Control. The legal regulation by the government is
always a barrier in international advertising. Government control is defined as
any form of restriction exercised by the legislation, court, consumer
protection, and administrative department in the government of a target country
(Cutler, 1991; Boddewyn, 1981). The degree of restriction on advertising varies
according to the country. Advertising in the United States is the most
unrestricted (with the exception of deceptive advertising) by both the
government and by media practices (Cutler, 1991; Boddewyn, 1983). Boddewyn
(1983) discovered that India had minor legal restriction but major media
restriction. Many studies found that there are substantial advertising
regulatory differences across countries and thus, this would greatly hinder
international advertising, especially standardized advertising (Boddewyn, 1981;
Boddewyn and Marton, 1978; Luqmani, Yavas and Quraeshi, 1989; Zandpour et al,
1994). In particular, Zandpour et al (1994) found that the extent and nature of
government control of advertising was significantly related to advertising
messages. Specifically, they found that when marketers were confronted with
strict government control of advertising, they tended to use psychological and
symbolic associations and were less likely to use dramatic testimonials and
wordy commercials.
Type of Products. Advertisers may impact the nature of
advertising through the type of products that they advertize (Zandpour et al,
1994). Ryans (1969) suggested that product type should be one of the main
determinants for advertising standardization. However, in the case of all
durable products and most non-durable products, standardization is quite
questionable. Jhally, Kline and Leiss (1985) found that in the United States,
the use of appeals varied drastically by product category. Similarly, Link
(1988) suggested that globalization process must be tailored to the specific
needs of each product category.
Zandpour et al (1994)'s study found that product categories have
independently affected information content, creative strategy, the style of ad
messages. In particular, Food-beverages was more likely to be presented in a
dramatic format, providing little visual information with very little chance of
being advertised in a news format. Personal care-cosmetic and drug advertising,
however, was more likely to use visual information. This category was also less
likely to be presented in a news format as opposed to service, car and car
products that were more frequently advertised in terms of conceptually unrelated
facts with little visual information.
To summarize, this study explains the difference of advertising
from the conceptual framework of the combination of cultural distance and market
distance. Simultaneous examination of both cultural distance and market
distance will provide a more explanatory power for the difference of
advertising. It is because both variables are not correlated and thus,
independent and mutually exclusive. Furthermore, which variable has more impact
on ad difference cannot be always determined.
Advertising Appeals.
The advertising appeal in this study is defined as persuasive
techniques that advertisers use in the advertisement in the hope of attracting
their A.I.D.A (attention-interest-desire-action) (Aaker and Meyers, 1987). The
advertising appeal can be multi-dimensional as it contains both the intended
message and the process for delivering the message (Cutler, 1991). There are a
number of classification systems which have been developed for describing
advertising appeal (Jhally, Kline, and Leiss, 1985; Norris, 1981; Fletcher and
Zeigler, 1978). Among many executional appeals, however, this study will
categorize them into hard or soft sell, direct response,and comparative appeal
which have been most frequently used in cross-cultural studies of international
advertising.
Hard and soft-sell appeal. The terms hard-sell and soft-sell
advertising are defined as relative terms which describes an overall set of
advertisements and techniques rather than any specific ad or technique.
Hard-sell advertising consists of advertising which takes a direct, short-term,
approach to the actual sale of a product (Cutler, 1991; Wells, Burnett and
Moriarity, 1989). Such advertising is generally described as focusing on
rational, factual, logical reasons for purchasing the product. Soft-sell
advertising will be defined as advertising which takes an indirect, long-term
approach to the sale of the product through the establishment of association
between the product and positive feeling for a person, situation or item
(Cutler, 1991). Soft-sell ads tend to be associated with an emotional appeal,
as opposed to hard-sell ads using a rational or product-oriented appeal.
Lannon (1986) characterizes the dominant United States hard-sell
approach as fact based, while the more soft-sell approach exists in the U.K.'s
humor. Roth (1982) characterizes the U.K.'s style as more participative,
implicit, nonverbal and visual than the United States ads. Similar contrasts
between hard-sell and soft-sell are made in many of the studies of Japanese
advertising. Mueller (1987) found that the soft-sell approach was used three
times as often in Japanese ads as in the United States ads. Helming (1984)
notes that Japanese commercials do not mention price and are low-key on the
emphasis of brand names. Roth (1982) described American ads as direct, visual
and explicit, with bold headlines and type, while Japanese ads were more
non-verbal, visual, intuitive, and emotional.
Direct response appeal. Direct response is defined as a direct
action request, such as a coupon or an invitation to write or call (Wells, 1988;
Cutler, 1991). Ads containing direct response requests are oriented to the
short-term and direct and can be measured for results. This direct action
orientation is highly structured, and appears to fit within the
conceptualization of hard-sell (Mueller, 1991; Cutler, 1991). Martensen (1987)
found that advertising in the United States had a 22 percent higher
individualism score than Sweden and used direct response ads 29 percent more
often than Sweden.
Comparative Appeal. Comparative appeal is defined as an appeal
which explicitly compares the brand to a competitor's brand by name/picture, the
term brand X competitors' brands, or implicitly by stating that the brand is
better than all others. The explicit or implicit comparison of one brand to
another brand in an ad has been examined by a number of researchers (Miracle,
1988; Miracle and Nevett, 1987; Boddewyn, 1983; Boddewyn and Marton, 1978). The
regulatory situation is substantially different in each country, and in this
case the regulatory factor was expected to dominate over both economic and
cultural indicators (Boddewyn, 1983). The United States uses this appeal or
technique more predominantly than any other country in the world. Mueller
(1991) and Cutler (1989) argued that while ads in individualistic culture such
as the US frequently use comparative appeals, ads in collectivistic societies
may not need or desire specific comparative appeals.
Country Profile
Three countries were selected from North America and Asia, the
two largest marketable continents. They are the US, Korea and Japan. From a
cultural perspective, Korea and Japan represent traditionally Eastern cultures,
while the US represents the West (Mueller, 1987; Chang, 1991, Frith and Frith,
1991; Frith and Wesson, 1992).
Type of Culture
The communication objectives in Asian cultures are directed
toward achieving consensus and harmony in interpersonal relations and social
circumstance (Lin, 1993). For this reason, Korean and Japanese cultures are
found to be collectivistic in emphasizing these values. In contrast, the United
States is considered a culture that relies heavily on its Western rhetoric and
logical tradition to relate thoughts and actions to people and their environment
(Hall and Hall, 1987; Wells, 1987; Lin, 1993). Therefore, US culture is
regarded to be highly individualistic (Hsu, 1981; Hofstede, 1980; Bella, 1987;
Shiffman and Kanuk, 1978; Chang, 1991).
Korean culture is even more collectivistic than Japanese culture
(Gudykunst, Yoon and Nishida, 1987; Hofstede, 1984). This finding was confirmed
by Klopf (1981) who reported that in Korea, the family unit is more important
than the individual, and decisions are made in favor of the entire family,
rather than for the sole benefit of a single individual of the family. Both
Korean and Japanese cultures have mostly been influenced by Confucianism which
stresses the importance of maintaining proper human relationships. This
tradition results in the implicitness and indirectness of the Korean and
Japanese languages (Yum, 1987). On this side of Pacific, the Western spirit of
adventurism and conquest guides US culture to express more challenges and
confrontation to the status quo (Lin, 1993). Thus, US culture is characterized
as direct, explicit( Frith and Wesson, 1991) and as distrustful of authority
(Shils, 1956, Norton, 1964).
According to Hofstede's (1984) survey, Asian countries tended
mostly to be in high-power distance cultures, whereas most of Western countries
were more likely to belong to low power distance cultures. His study also found
that the Korean and Japanese culture were high power distance cultures, showing
scores of 54 and 60 respectively on a power distance scale, compared to 40 of
the United States.
Americans live easily with uncertainty and base many of their
daily decisions on probabilities (De Mooiji, 1994). The Asian people, on the
other hand, shun insecurity. Hofstede (1984) showed that Asian tended to have a
strong need to avoid uncertainty than people of any other nationality. The
uncertainty avoidance indexes of Korea and Japan were 85 and 92 respectively,
whereas it is 46 for US. Consequently, Japanese and Koreans have much higher
uncertainty avoidance, compared to US (Hofstede, 1984).
In the perception of time, the Americans have a linear time
concept, with clear structures, such as beginning, turning point, climax and end
(Hall, 1989). Thus, they tend to do one thing at a time in the way of handling
time called "monochronic." On the other hand, Korean and Japanese are more
likely to be "polychronic" which means that people tend to do many things
simultaneously (De Mooiji, 1994; Hofstede, 1984).
Market Sophistication
Regarding market conditions, US is the leader especially in
advertising industry environment at the 21st century, but is closely followed by
Japan. For instance, in the area of advertising expenditures, US is the top
market with Japan a distinct second largest market, whereas Korea was marked as
the 9th market in the world (Advertising Age, August 14, 1994).
Overall, general trade volumes and economic indicators show that
US and Japan were sharing the leading positions in the world markets, compared
to Korea. According to Kotler (1992)'s definitions of market level based on the
concept of product life cycle, both US and Japan may be advanced market dwelling
on the maturity stage of product life cycle (PLC), whereas Korea is more likely
to be a far developing market in the stage of growth of the PLC. Government
control in Japan and Korea is similarly stricter than US which is much more
moderate than any other country (Boddeywn, 1986; Cutler, 1991).
In regard to domestic institutional arrangement, the typical
Western ad agency is independent of the media and considers it unethical to
accept as clients firms competing in the same market (Johansson, 1994).
However, the ad agencies in Korea and Japan do not face this limitations. The
larger agencies have direct influence in the media and customarily maintain
business relationships with competing advertisers. In terms of media
availability and patterns, Korea has only 197 consumer magazines (Ad Yearbook,
1993), which is far behind US (2,869) and Japan (2,424) (Ad Age, August 1994).
Korean consumers get information about products and services mostly from
newspapers, whereas Americans and Japanese do so from magazines (Hong et al,
1987; Moon and Franke, 1987). It might be partly because US and Japanese
magazines are more narrowly targeted based on more specialized topics than those
in Korea. In terms of ad personnel shortage, US had more abundant access to a
ready supply of advertising personnel, compared to Japan and Korea (Zandpour et
al, 1994). Even Japan had a higher advertising personnel shortage than Korea.
From the comparison, the US-Japan dyad has more in common than
the Japan-Korea or US-Korea dyads. Basically, these countries share certain
characteristics and yet are differentiated by others. Japan and Korea share
cultural perspectives but differ in market conditions. US and Japan have
similar market conditions, but exhibit diversely opposite cultural
characteristics.
For these two comparisons, the relative influence of two
variables is hard to establish in terms of which has more impact on difference
of ads between countries, because these are not mutually correlated by any
means. However, this study expects that cultural distance will largely - but
not absolutely - be more impactful than market distance for the following
reasons. First of all, major criteria for cultural distance were originally
related to socio-cultural uniqueness which encompasses all the consumer-related
factors such as language, values, attitudes, and other psychological variables.
In contrast, market distance or conditions are expected to form the external
structure of advertising, which is more directly related to the industrial
environment of advertising than to the consumer environment. Thus, these
arguments will boil down to the question of which influence had more priority in
creating difference of ads : consumer factors or market factors?
Assuming that advertising is a purposeful and consumer-oriented
communication means between advertisers and consumers, advertising is more
likely to be reflective of cultural distance or characteristics, as a primary
influential agent of ad dissimilarity. Factors of market distance associated
with market conditions play only a secondary role in measuring or evaluating ad
differences. Therefore, in this study, it is expected that cultural
characteristics or cultural distance are more impactful than market conditions
or market distance.
When applying this to the cultural and market distance scale as
in Figure 1, if there is any difference of ads between US and Japan, that will
be attributed to the difference of culture or characteristics. Also, any
difference of ads between Japan and Korea will be ascribed to the dissimilarity
of market conditions. Finally, the difference between US and Korea will be
explained by the difference in both cultural characteristics and market
conditions.
Based on the above discussion and findings, the following
hypotheses are stated :
H1: US magazine ads will have more hard-sell, comparative and
direct response appeals than Korean magazine ads.
H2: US magazine ads will have more hard-sell, comparative and
direct response appeals than Japanese magazine ads.
H3: Japanese magazine ads will have more hard-sell, comparative
and direct response appeals than Korean magazine ads.
So far, a distance pattern between individual countries has been
predicted on the basis of their predicted interaction among cultural
characteristics, market conditions and advertising. The next step is concerned
with a distance pattern between country dyads - country pairs - which is the
question of where in the cultural and market distance scale each dyad could be
positioned. Further, it is expected that advertising difference will vary
according to cultural and market distance between country dyads. Among the
three country dyads, the US-Korea comparison is at the maximum difference level
because of difference in both cultural and market distance, while the
Korea-Japan comparison is at the minimum difference level because of difference
only in market distance, according to the distance scale. Thus, applied to an
advertising context, it can be expected that advertising difference between US
and Korea will be greater than the one between US & Japan or Korea & Japan.
Further, it can be also predicted that advertising difference between US and
Japan will be greater than Korea and Japan. Therefore, the hypotheses will be
as follows:
H4: The differences between US and Korean ads are greater than
those between US and Japanese ads in ad appeals.
H5: The differences between US and Korean ads are greater than
those between Korean and Japanese ads in ad appeals.
H6: The differences between US and Japanese ads are greater
than those between Korean and Japanese ads in ad appeals.
Method
Magazine ads from US, Japan and Korea constitute the units of
analysis. This study content analyzed magazine advertisements (at least
half-page in size) that were for multinational common brands from US, Japan and
Korea.
US, Japanese and Korean advertisements were obtained by
purposive sampling, i.e, advertisements selected on the basis of specific
characteristics or qualities and eliminated those which failed to meet these
criteria. Thus, advertisements for common brands advertized in these three
countries in Winter (January), Spring (March), Summer (June), and Fall
(September) 1995 were obtained in order to control for possible seasonality
effects. Editions from as many titles of magazines with mass circulations as
possible were used to obtain the latest number of common ads. As a result, 243
magazine ads were collected from US (n=81), Japan (n=81) and Korea (n=81) from a
total of 65 magazine titles - approximately 500 issues.
Coding Scheme
Sets of common brand ads in the US, Japanese and Korean sample
were content analyzed for a number of variabes. These included three types of
ad appeals: 1) hard sell / soft sell, 2) comparative appeal, and 3) direct
respose appeal, as well as 4) the degree of similarity between country dyads.
The ad appeals were nominally coded: 1) hard / soft sell appeal
was coded "0" for hard-sell and "1" for soft-sell appeal; 2) comparative and 3)
direct response appeal were measured as follows: "0" for absence and "1" for
presence.
To code ad-related factors, three independent coders, unaware of
the objectives of the study, were recruited. Fluency in Japanese and Korean was
a requirement for the coding of those ads. High intercoder reliability was
found using Scott's pi procedure: American/Korean (87.9%),
American/Japanese(85.7%) and Korean/Japanese(86.7%).
The degree of similarity in ads between country dyads was
measured on the basis of coding results. Particularly, this was coded by a
primary coder after comparing pairs of common brand ads in the US and Japanese
sample, the US and Korean sample and Japanese and Korean sample. The evaluation
was done on the basis of a 5-point scale ranging from totally dissimilar to very
similar . The assessment was determined by the percent of agreement in coding
14 information cues of paired samples of ads. That is, if their codings in ads
between paired countries were in 81 - 100% agreement, it receives a "5"(very
similar). Likewise, a "4" is used for 61 - 80% agreement, a "3" for 41 - 60%
agreement, a "2" for 21 - 40 agreement and a "1" (totally dissimilar) for 0 -
20% agreement. In addition, type of product among market conditions was
excluded from analysis due to the sample characteristics.
With regard to statistical measures, chi-square, t-test were
used to test the study hypotheses.
A New Approach with Concept Mapping
As a way of comparing countries' unique meaning vis a vis
ad-related factors, this study proposes the use of a computerized concept-mappig
program called VBPro (Miller, 1993). Concept mapping is a multidimensional
scaling procedure developed for the specific purpose of analyzing natural
language text through computer program (Miller, 1991).
The scaling was made by the mechanism of factor analysis. The
program creates a term-by-term cosine matrix based on the frequency of their
occurrence and co-occurance and extracts the first three eigenvectors of this
matrix. The eigenvalues are standardized to unit length (that is, the sum of
their squares equals one). This standardization minimizes differences in
derived values that are due solely to differences in frequency occurrence
(Andsager and Miller, 1994). The formula for the co-occurrence cosine matrix is
as follows where A and B represent the respective terms (Salton, 1982).
Cos = AB/ ( A2)( B2)
The values for the first eigenvector depend primarily on the
frequency and number of co-occurences of each term and are interpreted as the
prominence or "size" of that term or concept (Andsager and Miller, 1994). The
second and third eignevectors are interpreted as dimensions to project the words
into a two-dimensional space (Andsager and Miller, 1994). Therefore, concepts
appearing close to each other could be said to represent a cluster and are
related through co-occurrence (Chew and Kim, 1994).
For the most part, the usage of concept mapping has varied
according to analytic purposes and media characteristics. In general, concept
mapping has been used to analyze the relationship between attributes and objects
in media content and among perceptions of population subgroups (Miller, 1991;
Chew and Miller, 1992; Chew, Metha, and Kim, 1992; Chew, Metha and Oldfather,
1993; Chew, Metha and Oldfather, 1994; ). Themes and categories in contents
were usually the variables under examination. However, the present study used
concept mapping to analyze the dynamic pattern between attributes and objects.
Unlike the previous studies that focused on texts in media coverage and
open-ended data from respondents, this study analyzed the creative patterns in
magazine advertising among countries. Specifically, it examined how ad-related
attributes will co-occur and be associated with specific countries (the
objects). Spatial plots were used to show the distance (closeness or
separateness) of specific elements or factors related to advertising from each
country.
Data from original coding instrument was entered and transfered
from SAS to VBPro, the computer program for concept mapping (Miller, 1995).
Data was reformatted from the number to actual term representing it in an ad.
After data were entered and processed in a specific format required by VBPro,
VBPro coded the data on co-occurrence of each country and frequency
distributions of categorical attributes. As mentioned earlier, standardized
principal components of the co-occurance matriz were created based on the
interactions between these country variables and categorical attributes, which
subsequently demonstrate the relationship clusters of selected terms and their
standardized loadings. These loadings produced three dimensional coordinates,
among which the second and third coordinates were the horizontal and vertical
dimensions respectively. In this study, the standardized loadings were
reexpressed as bubble coordinates with a vriety of different radia on the chart.
This process resulted in the position of the spatial plot which was the
rendezvous point of two dimensional coordinates. It further provides
comparative insights into what types of categorical attributes occur more
frequently among the three countries. Specifically, it compared country to
country in regard to preplanned categorical attributes by doing maps for all
three countries.
Results
US and Korea
As expected, US ads were more likely to use hard-sell appeals
(75.3%), whereas Korean ads tended to use soft-sell appeals (58.0%). The result
of chi-square test showed there was a significant difference between US and
Korean ads (X2= 18.6, p<.01, see table 1). In addition, US ads tended to use
comparative appeals more frequently than Korean ads (33.3% vs. 18.5%, X2= 4.6,
p<.05). However, no significant difference was found in direct response appeal
between these two countries (see Table 2). Thus, Hypothesis 1 was partially
supported.
-------------------------
Table 1 about here
-------------------------
-------------------------
Table 2 about here
-------------------------
US vs. Japan
As expected, US ads tended to use hard-sell appeal more than
Japanese ads (75.3% vs. 60.5%, X2=4.08, p<.05). However, contrary to the
prediction, Japanese ads were more likely to use hard-sell appeal rather than
soft-sell appeals (see Table 3).
US ads also had more comparative appeals than Japanese ads
(33.3% vs. 11.1%, X2=11.6, p<.05) However, no statistical significance was
found in direct response appeal between US and Japanese ads (see Table 4).
Thus, these findings provide partial support for Hypothesis 2.
-------------------------
Table 3 about here
-------------------------
-------------------------
Table 4 about here
-------------------------
Japan vs. Korea
The result showed that Japanese ads used more hard-sell appeals,
whereas Korean ads had more soft-sell appeals (X2=5.59, p<.05, see Table 5). No
significant difference was found in comparative or direct response appeal
between ads in Japan and Korea (see Table 6). Overall, these provided partial
support for Hypothesis 3.
-------------------------
Table 5 about here
-------------------------
-------------------------
Table 6 about here
-------------------------
Degree of Similarity Between Country Dyads
Comparison between US/Korea and Japan/Korea
No significant difference was found in ad appeal between ads in
US/Korea and US/Japan (Mean = 4.03 vs. Mean = 4.14, t (160) = -.71, p<.23, see
Table 7). When profiled by product category, a significant difference was found
only in alcohol-tobacco ads (see Table 8). The result showed that ads between
US and Japan for this product were more similar than ads between US and Korea.
This provides partial support for Hypothesis 4.
-------------------------
Table 7 about here
-------------------------
-------------------------
Table 8 about here
-------------------------
Comparison between US/Korea and Japan/Korea
The result shows no significant difference in ad appeals between
ads in US/Korea and Japan/Korea (Table 9). However, when profiled by product
category, a significant difference was found in jewelry ads. That is, ad
appeals between Japanese and Korean ads for jewelry were more similar than those
between ads in US and Korea for the same product (Table 10). Car ads approached
statistical significance (p <.063) and thus indicated that ad appeals between
Japanese and Korean ads for cars may be more similar than those between US and
Korean ads for the same product.
-------------------------
Table 9 about here
-------------------------
-------------------------
Table 10 about here
-------------------------
Comparison between US/Japan and Japan/Korea
There is also no significant difference in ad appeal between
US/Japan and Japan/Korea dyads (Table 11). However, a significant difference
was found in alcohol-tobacco ads. As in information content, ads in US and
Japan for alcohol-tobacco were more similar than those between Japan and Korea
for the same product (Table 12). This showed the opposite direction of
Hypothesis 6, which was not supported.
-------------------------
Table 11 about here
-------------------------
-------------------------
Table 12 about here
-------------------------
Concept Mapping
Figure 1 based on standardized loadings (Table 13) displays the
attributes associated with ad appeals as they co-occur with countries. The
"soft-sell" appeal was closer to Korea, whereas the "hard-sell" appeal was
closer to U.S. Further, a cluster of hard-sell appeal is located relatively
closer to Japan, compared to Korea. "Comparative" appeal was closer to U.S.,
and "direct response" appeal was located at the center of the map and thus, had
almost equal distance from three countries. These results provide partial
support for Hypotheses 1, 2 and 3, and are closely consistent with the
chi-square results.
-------------------------
Figure 1 about here
-------------------------
-------------------------
Table 13 about here
-------------------------
Discussion
Chi-square tests suggested that US ads were more likely to use
hard-sell appeals and Korean soft-sell. Also, US ads tended to use hard-sell
appeal more than Japanese ads. Furthermore, Japanese ads used more hard-sell
appeals, whereas Korean ads had more soft-sell appeals. In addition,
comparative appeal was found significantly more often in US ads than in Japanese
and Korean ads. However, no significant difference was found in direct response
among three countries. Data from concept mapping were consistent with such
results.
Hard-Soft Sell: It was expected that hard-sell appeal was more
likely to be employed in monochronic and individualistic cultures with linear
logic and explicit conclusion and low power distance, whereas soft-sell appeal
was more likely to be used in polychronic and collectivistic cultures with
indirect and suggestive communication tone or style. In addition, hard sell
appeal was more likely to be employed in markets with high advertising
expenditure per capita, more types of products and less strict government
control of advertising. Thus, difference in hard-and-soft sell appeal between
US and Korean ads can be explained by both cultural and market differences. In
addition, difference in such appeals between US and Japanese ads can be
explained more by cultural distance. As expected, such a difference between
Japanese and Korean ads may be explained by market distance.
Noteworthy is that Korean ads had more soft-sell appeal, though
they were found to be significantly more informative. This is contrary to the
notion that hard-sell ads tend to have more information cues, while soft-sell
ads had fewer. However, looking especially at Korean ads, artifacts such as
price, components or contents, and availability information cues were more
consistently found than in other countries'. As was already operationalized,
these factors were not considered as contributing factors to hard-soft sell
appeals.
Comparative Appeal: Results showed that US ads tended to use
this appeal more frequently than did Japanese and Korean ads. Contrary to the
expectations, no significant difference in comparative appeal was found between
Japan and Korea. Concept mapping also indicated that comparative appeal was
distinctly clustered more closely to US, compared to Japan and Korea.
Comparative appeal was expected to appear more often in
monochronic cultures with individualism. In addition, this appeal was more
likely to be used in competitive markets with abundant types of products and
less strict government control of advertising as well as in those with available
advertising personnel. Possibly, individualism-collectivism as well as strict
legal regulation of advertising are major determinants for difference in
comparative appeal and for localization between ads in US and Japan, and US and
Korea. Also, this reflects the Japanese and Korean "cultural characteristics of
avoiding confrontation"; in addition, the Japanese and Korean do not want
competitors to lose face (Wagenaar, 1978). Accordingly, comparative ads in
Japan and Korea tend to be legally restricted by their governments and to be
both explicitly and implicitly avoided by advertisers as well as consumers who
favor group harmony over individual self-interest and desire.
Thus, differences in comparative appeal between US and Korean
ads can be explained by both cultural and market distances. In addition,
difference in such appeals between US and Japanese ads can be explained more by
cultural distance and partly by market distance especially in legal regulation
of comparative appeal in advertising. However, no significant difference in
comparative appeal was found between Japanese and Korean ads. This is another
example that as mentioned in the above, cultural similarity had more overriding
power than market distance.
Direct Response Appeal: Contrary to the expectation, chi-square
results showed no significant difference in any paired comparisons of countries.
Concept mapping indicated that this cluster is placed at the center of the map,
i.e., it tended to co-occur with equal frequently with US, Japan and Korea.
This was more likely to be used in monochronic cultures
emphasizing linear, logical, direct and explicit communication style. Also,
this appeal was expected to be used in markets with more US advertisers -
originally invented and got fully oriented to this selling technique - as well
as in those with high advertising expenditure per capita and many types of
products. However, the expectation was not supported. One of the reasons may
be that such expectations mostly resulted from studies on domestic brand ads in
each specific country, rather than on multinational brand ads. Thus,
characteristics of ads may be one explanatory factor. Perhaps direct response
may be the least sensitive appeal to cultural and market conditions and instead,
be the common denominator for multinational brand ads which were generally new
to consumers and tend to solicit their high involvement-decision making and
further inquiries for more information.
Similarity of Ad Appeals
Overall, no significant differences in similarity ratings of ad
appeals were found between any country dyads. However, when profiled by product
category, ad appeals between Japanese and Korean ads for jewelry turned out to
be more similar than those between US and Korean ads. This provided partial
support for the expectation that ads between Japan and Korea which have cultural
similarity but market distance, would be more similar than those between US and
Korea which have both cultural and market distance. This finding suggests
regarding jewelry ads, ad appeals can be more standardized between ads in Japan
and Korea than between ads in US and Korea. Such a difference between US and
Japan or Korean ads might possibly be explained by difference of gender roles
specific to them.
For example, Korean and Japanese women in collectivistic
cultures with authoritative and hierarchical structure - i.e., high power
distance - tend to pursue their ideal self-image to be recognized their social
positions or status in their groups, while American women in individualistic
cultures with more horizontal and informal relationship - i.e., low power
distance are more likely to look for their actual or realistic self-image and
self-interest, and tend to ignore the formality. Thus, this trend may have
contributed to the differences in ad appeal for jewelry ads among them.
In addition, ad appeals between US and Japanese ads for
alcohol-tobacco were found to be more similar than those between US and Korea,
and Japan and Korea. For this market sensitive product, market similarity
between US and Japan had more explanatory power than cultural similarity between
Japan and Korea. Thus, ad appeals between US and Japan could be more similar
than those between Japan and Korea. Plausibly, the industries relevant to these
products are fully deregulated to private companies: thus free market
competition is ensured. These two countries have been enjoying a relatively
free trade system for these products, compared to the Korean alcohol-tobacco
industry which is still under regional cartel system or restricted by the
government. Also, these products in both US and Japan are generally similar PLC
which is on the maturity stage, whereas those in Korea is still on the growing
stage. Thus, as far as alcohol-tobacco products are concerned, more similarity
can be found between US and Japan than between US and Korea, and even between
Japan and Korea. Contrary to our conceptual prediction, this suggests that at
least for ads of alcohol-tobacco which tend to be sensitive more to market
conditions, market similarity is more useful to predict the degree of campaign
performance in ad appeals, rather than cultural similarity.
Hard-and-soft sell appeal was significantly different among
three countries. Thus, a localized approach is obviously suitable, between
these paired countries, for ad messages using such appeals. Dissimilarity in
comparative appeal may be the reason that advertising message should be
localized between US and Korea, and US and Japan. Also, similarity in this
appeal between Japan and Korea may be a reason that ads between them should be
more standardized. In addition, it was found that product types were major
contributing factors to decisions for standardized or localized approach,
because they differ significantly in their sensitivities to either cultural or
market conditions.
Overall, similarity and dissimilarity of three major advertising
factors among US, Japan and Korea were examined and discussed with the emphasis
on their associations with cultural and market conditions. The expectations
clearly supported that differences in cultural characteristics and market
conditions lead respectively to cultural distance as well as market distance
between different cultural groups. Further, an inductive inference from these
results suggests that the combination of such cultural distance and market
distance should ultimately lead to "advertising distance" between cultural
groups - here expressed as the degree of standardization and localization: if it
becomes closer or shorter between countries, ads tend to be more standardized,
whereas if it becomes farther and wider, then ads are more likely to be
localized.
Limitations of the study
A primary weakness of this study is the small sample size. An
examination of 243 magazine ads for common multinational brands (81 sets) from
three countries might weaken the reliability of the obtained results. Also,
this small sample size might have increased the likelihood of a type II error.
With 81 sets, the statistical tests undertaken may not reveal significant
differences when, in fact, such differences indeed exist in the population.
Also, since these ads were obtained by purposive sample, they may not be
representative of all ads in countries, rather mostly represent elite market.
However, since the major purpose of this study was to observe and analyze ad
transferability between countries, such a sampling technique was unavoidable.
In addition, what this study did not address and was not
designed to address was to investigate the effectiveness of ad campaigns on
consumers. This is a question particularly worthy of exploration. For the
advertising practitioner, an understanding of which technique in ad is more
effective is also important.
Another major limitation is that although this study was
conceptually based on cultural characteristics and market conditions, it could
not provide an ideally objective guideline for their interactions - i.e., when
both conflict in explaining ad difference or similarity. However, the results
of this study are believed to provide a helpful direction for future work. In
line with this, this study focused on only three specific countries as samples
and even country group with both cultural and market similarity could not be
included into sampling frame. Thus, the results of this study might have a weak
external validity.
Also, this research was based on only magazine advertisements to
compare ad transferability. However, it is ideal to compare and ensure the
applicabilities of the results to a variety of media such as TV, newspaper and
radio.
Another weakness was regarding the classifications of ad
appeals. Ad appeals in this study had no proper classification categories which
were exclusively and exhaustively designed. This might have hampered more
robust statistical analysis. Future research needs to add more appeals such as
sex appeal, humor appeal etc., in addition to the three appeals investigated in
this study.
Summary of Results and Implications
Discussions based on study results showed mixed and intertwined
arguments against or for the expectations for this study. These can be
summarized according to the order to conceptual process model that this study
developed earlier for its utility test. Briefly stated, difference/similarity
of cultural and market conditions will lead to cultural and market distance
respectively. Such distances were expected to not only determine clustering
patterns of countries, but also a degree of campaign performance such as
standardization and specialization. This process was predicted to influence
execution and development of ads. From each specific stage, managerial
implications may be more efficiently provided.
Cultural Characteristics and Market Conditions
This study generally identified a set of cultural and market
dimensions that could explain the different natures of magazine advertising
among three countries. Specifically, it demonstrated that cultural
characteristics such as individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty
avoidance and perception of time independently and in an integrated form,
affected differences in ad appeals among ads from US, Japan and Korea. In
addition, market conditions such as advertising expenditure per capita, presence
of US advertisers and ad agencies, government control of advertising,
advertising personnel shortage and product type were also major contributing
factors to such differences of magazine advertising messages. In addition, this
study found additional intervening cultural and market variables affecting such
differences which were media type, media usage pattern, product life cycle,
product category, social attitude toward product and gender role.
Ad Appeals: Cultural and market conditions could lead to
significant difference in hard-and-soft sell appeals between three countries.
US ads had more hard-sell appeals than Japan which had more than Korean ads. As
such, hard-sell appeal was used in US ads - i.e., monochronic and
individualistic cultures and market with less strict legal regulation of
advertising, than Japan - i.e., polychronic and collectivistic cultures with
mature competition - and Korea - i.e., polychronic and collectivistic culture
with low advertising expenditure per capita and strict government control of
advertising. In comparative appeal, US ads had this appeal more often than did
Japanese and Korean ads. As expected, comparative appeal was found in
monochronic and individualistic cultures with less strict regulation of
advertising.
Cultural and Market Distance
The study's proposed theoretical framework of cultural and
market distance overall predicted that differences in cultural and market
conditions would lead to advertising distances. Cultural and market distances
were predicted by their conceptual scales and thus, measured differences in
creative strategy, information content and ad appeals between country dyads
through similarity test.
Ad Appeals: Ad appeals between Japan and Korea for jewelry ads
turned out to be more similar than those between US and Korean ads for the same
product. For this product, ad appeals between the dyad with cultural similarity
and market distance are more similar than those between the dyad with both
cultural and market distance. In jewelry ads, ad appeals between Japan and
Korea where only market distance exists were more similar than those between US
and Korea where cultural and market distance co-exist.
As noted, it is generally clear that difference and similarity
in ads between country dyads could be explained by cultural and/or market
distance between them. Before reaching this observation, what is important for
advertisers is that they should understand the relative importance of the
various factors influencing advertising difference /similarity. Further, the
relative extent of such difference/similarity in ads varies in certain elements
and certain condition - i.e., according to the interaction of country dyads with
a variety of cultural and market conditions.
Country Clustering and Degree of Campaign Performance
Country clustering or grouping was expected to be based on
relative degree of cultural distance/similarity and market distance/similarity.
Study results on these offer a guideline for decision-making on the degree of
standardization or specialization.
Ad Appeals: Although cultural and market conditions could not
lead to advertising distance between the analyzed countries, they could lead to
a significant difference in cultural and market distance for alcohol-tobacco and
jewelry. Specifically, in regard to ad appeals in alcohol-tobacco ads, US and
Japan can be clustered into the same group and thus could be more standardized,
compared to Japan and Korea. For ad appeals in jewelry ads, Japan and Korea
could be in the same cluster and their ads could be more standardized than ads
between US and Korea.
Overall, it is clear that this model was relatively well tested,
though the results were not based upon fully deductive reasoning. Although
three countries were chosen for the study, each represents typical pattern of
global country components and clusters. Also, the results of this study provide
the practitioner with a glimpse of the current state of international
advertising.
Nonetheless, as far as results from this study were based only
on content analysis of current ads, rather than measuring effectiveness of ads
on consumers, absolute recommendations for advertisers may not be valid. Thus,
presuming that the practices of ad campaigns by a number of famous and
prestigious multinational brands could be relatively more typical and exemplary,
this study would suggest some implications and recommendations.
Although results tend to provide partial answers for the
multitude of questions that practitioners are likely to have regarding
standardization vs. specialization, the glimpse should be sufficient to caution
them against an overly optimistic embrace of the extreme position of
globalization or specialization of international advertising. Further, on the
basis of results, it is expected that this study can offer a framework for
international advertisers in doing business, and for academics in crystallizing
a universal framework for international advertising. These are:
I. Decision for standardization or localization needs to be
based on degree of advertising distance determined by double-edged aspects of
cultural and market: from cultural similarity and market similarity for full
standardization ----> cultural similarity and market difference for less
standardization ----> cultural difference and market similarity more toward to
localization ---> to cultural and market difference for full localization.
However, such decisions may depend on ad-related factors and product categories.
Ad Appeals: Localization may be suggested but varies in type of
appeals. Hard-soft sell appeal is expected to be localized among three
countries. This appeal needs to be all differently prescribed between
individual country dyad. Comparative appeal can be localized between US and
Korea as well as US and Japan. These results are true especially for
alcohol-tobacco and jewelry ads. Comparative appeal may be more standardized
between ads from Japan and Korea. It is also expected that direct response
appeal may be more standardized among the three countries in all product
categories.
As mentioned, these suggestions are based on the analysis of
reality. In order to validate their practicalities and applicabilities into
this reality, an effectiveness study of ads on consumers should follow.
Nevertheless, presuming that what has been going on in international advertising
could be what advertisers for multinational brands have chosen to support, such
fact-driven suggestions may be more practical, useful and less risky. From this
point of view, here is suggestions with a specific example for "Debeer diamond
on print ads."
II. Further, it is suggested that to see their dissimilarities
between cultural groups, their similarities should be first considered and vice
versa. More important, for standardization, advertisers need to look into the
similarity which could override the difference either in culture or market.
Also, for localization purposes, advertisers may need to look for the difference
which could override the similarity either in culture or market.
Therefore, beyond the prevalent notion of regional proximity for
clustering countries, this study suggests that a relativity of distance in
culture and market should be considered in evaluating clustering pattern of
countries and determining degree of campaign performances.
Conclusion
There seems to be a major controversy between the advocates of
think global and the proponents of "think global but act local." The results of
this study would support the latter argument. This slogan might suggest that
"thinking global" reflects the strategic objective of international advertising
campaign which is its global reach-out beyond the differences, whereas "acting
local" is concerned more with tactical execution in implementing such a
strategic objective. Although cultural and market differences seem to dictate
the strategy and execution of advertising among US, Japan and Korea, certain
commonalities in each advertising approach are apparent. This implies that
there is always inherent common ground rooted in modern materialism across
cultures. This is because differences between national consumer cultures and
market environments are not absolute but a matter of degrees on a continuum
(Lin, 1993). In other words, it can be argued that extreme performance of ad
campaign - i.e., either completely standardized or localized - does not exist in
international context. Instead, the decision should be adjusted through
relative appraisal of cultural and market distance scale between individual
country dyads.
Therefore, when developing customized ads for local markets,
cultural characteristics, market conditions and other intervening variables such
as media type, PLC, product type, gender, and other cultural traits related to
communication patterns and styles etc. should be defined and evaluated in terms
of their weighted magnitudes of impact between different cultural groups.
Noteworthy is that as contemporary market conditions around international
environment is rapidly evolving, ads may develop more toward standardization.
In other words, advertising similarity due to evolving market conditions could
predominantly override advertising difference caused by cultural
characteristics. It is further expected that dominance of market conditions
over cultural characteristics will reemerge as another issue-provocative agenda
in international advertising.
As seen from the results regarding the similarity of ads,
localization and standardization approaches are not mutually exclusive, but
co-existent. International marketers should capitalize on which approach and
what should offer in each local market. More importantly, when they consider
either approach, it may be a good idea to take advantage of relative advertising
distance and its operational scale between many cultural groups. Toward that
end, a combined approach - weighing cultural and market distance - could be
proved as a significant step toward a viable strategy in an approaching global
era.
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Table 1.Hard-and-Soft sell Appeals
US vs.Korea
_______________________________________________
US Korea
_______________________________________________
Hard Sell 75.3% 41.9%
Soft Sell 24.7% 58.0%
________________________________________________
X2 = 18.6, df=1, p < .01
Table 2. Comparative Appeal and Direct Respons
US vs.Korea
_________________________________________________________________
US(%) Korea(%) Significance
level
_________________________________________________________________
Comparative Appeal 33.3 18.5 X2 = 4.6, p <
.05
Direct Response 55.5 58.0 X2 = .2, p <
.63
_________________________________________________________________
Table 3. Hard-and-Soft sell Appea
US vs. Japan
_______________________________________________
US Japan
_______________________________________________
Hard Sell 75.3% 60.5%
Soft Sell 24.7% 39.5%
_______________________________________________
X2 = 4.08, df=1, p < .05
Table 4. Comparative Appeal and Direct Response
US vs. Japan
_______________________________________________________
US(%) Japan(%)
Significane level
_______________________________________________________
Comparative Appeal 33.3 11.1 X2= 11.6, p
<.05
Direct Response 55.5 58.0 X2= .2,
p <.63
_______________________________________________________
Table 5. Hard-and-Soft sell Appeals
Japan vs. Korea
______________________________________________
Japan Korea
______________________________________________
Hard Sell 60.5% 41.9%
Soft Sell 39.5% 58.0%
______________________________________________
X2 = 5.59, df=1, p < .05
Table 6. Comparative Appeal and Direct Response
Japan vs. Korea
________________________________________________________
Japan(%) Korea(%)
Significance level
________________________________________________________
Comparative Appeal 11.1 18.5 X2 = 12.5, p
<.001
Direct Response 58.0 58.0 X2 = 0.0, p
< 1.0
________________________________________________________
Table 7. Mean Similaritya of Ad Appeals
US/Korea vs. US/Japan
____________________________________________________________
US/Korea n US/Japan n
t 1 tailed p.
____________________________________________________________
Mean Similarity 4.03 162 4.14 162 -
0.71 p <.23
____________________________________________________________
a Dyad ads were rated on a 1 - 5 scale where 1 indicates "very
dissimilar and 5 indicates "very similar."
Table 8 Mean Similarityb of Ad Appeal by Product Category
US/Korea vs. US/Japan
____________________________________________________________
US/Korea n US/Japan n t
1-tailed p.
____________________________________________________________
Food-Beveragea 3.6 3 4.6 3
Alcohol-Tobacco 4.1 7 4.7 7 -2.45
p<.012*
Personal Care 4.2 20 4.0 20 0.61
p <.27
-Cosmetics
Clothing 3.9 15 3.8 15
0.33 p <.42
Jewelry 3.5 14 4.0 14
-1.26 p <.10
Car 4.2 7 4.1 7
0.32 p <.37
Electronics 4.6 11 4.4 11
0.56 p <.28
Travel Servicesa 3.0 4 3.7 4
____________________________________________________________
* p < .05
a Cells were too small for statistical analysis
b Dyad ads were rated on a 1 - 5 scale where 1 indicates "very
dissimilar and 5 indicates "very similar."
Table 9. Mean Similaritya of Ad Appeals
US/Korea vs. Japan/Korea
____________________________________________________________
US/Korea n Japan/Korea n t
1-tailed p.
____________________________________________________________
Mean Similarity 4.03 162 4.07 162 -0.22 p
<.43
____________________________________________________________
a Dyad ads were rated on a 1 - 5 scale where 1 indicates "very
dissimilar" and 5 indicates "very similar."
Table 10. Mean Similarityb of Ad Appeal by product category
US/Korea vs. Japan/Korea
____________________________________________________________
US/Korea n Japan/Korea n t 1-tailed p
____________________________________________________________
Food-Beveragea 3.6 3 3.6 3
Alcohol-Tobacco 4.1 7 3.7 7 1.34 p <.10
Personal Care
-Cosmetics 4.2 20 4.3 20 -0.16 p <.48
Clothing 3.9 15 3.7 15 0.48 p <.31
Jewelry 3.5 14 4.4 14 -2.13 p
<.021*
Car 4.2 7 4.7 7 -1.64
p <.063
Electronics 4.6 11 4.1 11 1.23 p
<.11
Travel Servicesa 3.0 4 3.0 4
____________________________________________________________
* p < .05
a Cells were too small for statistical analysis.
b Dyad ads were rated on a 1 - 5 scale where 1 indicates "very
dissimilar" and 5 indicates "very similar."
Table 11. Mean Similaritya of Ad Appeals
US/Japan vs. Japan/Korea
____________________________________________________________
US/Japan n Japan/Korea n t
1-tailed p.
____________________________________________________________
Mean Similarity 4.14 162 4.07 162 0.44 p <.32
____________________________________________________________
a Dyad ads were rated on a 1 - 5 scale where 1 indicates "very
dissimilar" and 5 indicates "very similar."
Table 12. Mean Similarityb of Ad Appeals by product category
US/Japan vs. Japan/Korea
_______________________________________________________________
US/Japan n Japan/Korea n t 1-tailed p
_______________________________________________________________
Food-Beveragea 4.6 3 3.6 3
Alcohol-Tobacco 4.7 7 3.7 7 2.94 p <.006*
Personal Care
-Cosmetics 4.0 20 4.3 20 -0.82 p <.21
Clothing 3.8 15 3.7 15 0.30 p <.38
Jewelry 4.0 14 4.4 14 -0.81 p <.21
Car 4.1 7 4.7 7 -1.28 p <.11
Electronics 4.5 11 4.1 11 0.72 p <.23
Travel Servicesa 3.7 4 3.0 4
_______________________________________________________________
* p < .01
a Cells were too small for statistical analysis.
b Dyad ads were rated on a 1 - 5 scale where 1 indicates "very
dissimilar" and 5 indicates "very similar."
Table 13. Attributes Associated with Ad Appeals by Country
_____________________________________________
Standardized Loadings: First Three Coordinates
HARD 0.90 -0.42 0.15
SOFT 0.60 0.80 -0.11
COMPAR 0.81 -0.46 -0.36
DIRECT 0.99 0.10 0.13
KOREA 0.59 0.62 -0.52
JAPAN 0.53 0.19 0.83
USA 0.74 -0.60 -0.31
_____________________________________________
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