CHAPTER 7
The International Market Environment
for Brand Promotion
PPT 7-1
KEY TERMS
international brand
promotion
ethnocentrism
self-reference criterion
(SRC)
less-developed countries
newly industrialized
countries
highly industrialized
countries
demographic dividend
picturing
global agencies
international affiliates
local agency
globalized campaigns
localized campaigns
SUMMARY
PPT 7-2
LO1 Identify types of audience research that contribute to understanding cultural
barriers to effective communication.
All of us wear cultural blinders, so we must overcome substantial barriers in trying to
communicate with people from other countries. This is a major problem for international
LO2 Describe challenges that complicate integrated marketing and brand
communication in international settings.
Worldwide marketers face three distinctive challenges in executing their campaigns. The
first is a creative challenge that derives from differences in experience and meaning
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 2 t
LO3 Compare the basic types of agencies that can assist in brand promotion
around the world.
Advertising agencies offer marketers the expertise needed to develop and execute brand
promotion campaigns in international markets. Marketers can choose to work with global
LO4 Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of globalized versus localized
promotional campaigns.
A final concern for international brand promotion entails the degree of customization a
marketer should attempt in campaigns designed to cross national boundaries. Globalized
campaigns involve little customization among countries, whereas localized campaigns
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Introductory Scenario: Commander Safeguard Cleans Up
This intro is an extraordinary story and may be worth highlighting at the beginning of this
section. Normally, the intro is not provided in PPT due to instructor preferences. You
may want to make this an exception.
This scenario portrays a classic challenge for communicating within international markets
and highlights all the steps needed (and discussed throughout the chapter) to help ensure
success.
The situation facing Safeguard antibacterial soap was that Pakistan had serious hygiene
problems, many of which could be aided by hand washing with antibacterial soap, but the
Safeguard brand was not succeeding. So, the challenge was threefold:
• To reach families with a message that many infectious diseases are preventable
through basic hygiene
• To elevate this message to make it fun and engaging, especially for children,
rather than glum and forgettable
• To accomplish all this on a shoestring budget so that it would also lead to more
sales for Safeguard
The answer:
• Create a superhero on the order of Voltron, Captain Planet, or Spiderman, all
popular cartoon characters in Pakistan at the time of the Safeguard turnaround.
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 3 t
• The marketers of Safeguard launched one of their own superheroes in 2003:
“Commander Safeguard” was conceived as someone who could capture the
imagination of kids but also partner with mothers in their efforts to keep their
children in good health.
• For every superhero, there has to be a villain. Commander Safeguard’s first foe
would be “Dirtoo,” the germ king, who had it as his mission to stalk children at
every turn to spoil their health.
The strategy and execution:
• Commander Safeguard was introduced to children via a 15-minute cartoon
program code-named “Clean Sweep.”
• This programming was delivered as part of a school edutainment program for
kids.
• The aim was to fuse entertainment with education to make the program high-
impact.
• Commander Safeguard storybooks were also provided for the kids to take home
and share with their mothers.
The evaluation:
• Kids responded to this new superhero, and a series of new Commander Safeguard
adventures was made for national TV and radio.
• New villains were invented (to represent different types of infectious diseases),
but Commander Safeguard would defeat them all.
• The series deepened its connection to the local culture by using Pakistani
celebrities to do the voiceovers in each episode and creating plots around themes
that engaged kids (e.g., Dirtoo plans to spoil kids’ enjoyment of a cricket match
by making them all sick).
• Ultimately, an art gallery hosted at http://www.commandersafeguard.com let
children post drawings and poems created in school-sponsored Health Day
contests to celebrate both good hygiene and Pakistan’s first superhero.
• In combination with other TV communication targeted to mothers, this program
helped Safeguard double its sales over the next two years and made Pakistan the
fastest-growing Safeguard market in the world.
I. Communicating across Cultures
PPT 7-3, 7-4, 7-5
International brand promotion is brand promotion that reaches across national and
cultural boundaries. You can refer to discussions in Chapter 5, where culture is defined
as a set of values, rituals, and behaviors that define a way of life. Brand promotion is a
cultural product; it means nothing outside of culture; it gives meaning to promotional
messages. Promotion depends on effective communication, and effective communication
depends on shared meaning between the sender and the receivers.
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 4 t
A. Spotting Cultural Barriers
With more access to established international markets and multiple emerging
B. Cross-Cultural Blind Spots
Marketers must overcome two related biases to be successful in international markets:
• Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view and value things from the perspective
of one’s own culture.
• A self-reference criterion (SRC) is the unconscious reference to one’s own
cultural values, experiences, and knowledge as a basis for decisions.
The most effective way to counteract the negative influences that ethnocentrism and
SRC can have on international decision making is to constantly be sensitive to
potential differences between cultures.
C. Cross-Cultural Audience Research
Proper international audience analysis will likely require dozens of separate analyses
involving research in each different country, generally from a local research supplier.
An international audience analysis will also involve evaluation of economic
conditions; demographic characteristics; values; customs and rituals; and product use
and preferences.
1. Economic Conditions. One way to think about the economic conditions of a
potential international audience is to break the world’s markets into three
broad classes:
• Less-developed countries represent nearly 75 percent of the world’s
population. Some are plagued by drought and civil war, and their
• Newly industrialized countries are places where traditional ways of life
that have endured for centuries are now changing, and modern consumer
cultures have emerged in a few short years. Examples are South Korea,
Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
• Highly industrialized countries are countries with both a high GDP (as
shown in Exhibit 7.1) and a high standard of living. An audience
assessment will focus on more detailed analyses of the market:
competition, marketing trade channels, lifestyle trends, and market
potential.
2. Demographic Characteristics. Information on the demographic
characteristics of nations is generally available from either the U.S.
Department of Commerce or the United Nations. Marketers must be sensitive
to some world demographic conditions and trends:
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 5 t
• Roughly 20 percent of the world’s population, generally residing in the
highly industrialized countries, controls 75 percent of the world’s wealth
and accounts for 75 percent of all consumption.
• By the year 2010, an additional 400 million people will be born in the
Pacific Rim region. Although the current demographic profile shows a
relatively young population, by the year 2000, 30 percent of the
population will be in their 30s and 40s and will have migrated from rural
to urban areas. Demographic characteristics like this are often referred to
as a demographic dividend—meaning these characteristics are favorable
to economic expansion and rising consumption.
3. Values. Cultural values are enduring beliefs about what is important to the
members of a culture. Individualism versus collectivism is one of the more
stable and widely observed cultural differences among the peoples of the
world. Messages for cultures differing in this dimension (the United States
versus Japan, for example) need to be shaped with this factor in mind.
4. Customs and Rituals. Rituals perpetuate a culture’s connections to its core
values. Many consumer behaviors involve rituals, such as grooming, gift
giving, or religious rituals. The rituals of other cultures must not only be
5. Product Use and Preferences. The essence of a situation analysis is to
understand what consumers value. Product use and preferences are central in
international advertising development. For example, various studies reveal
that:
• Many Russian consumers typically wash their hair with soap and don’t
understand the concept of hair conditioner, so Wash & Go shampoo was a
failure.
• There is no market in the world like the United States, where consumers
are preoccupied with the use of personal-care products such as toothpaste,
shampoo, deodorant, and mouthwash.
• In Brazil, many women still wash clothes by hand in metal tubs, using
cold water.
• In France, men use cosmetics much like those used by women in the
United States. Advertising must, therefore, be specifically prepared for
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 6 t
men and placed in media to reach them with specific male-oriented
appeals.
II. Challenges of International Brand Promotion
PPT 7-6, 7-7, 7-8
Three challenges complicate international brand promotion.
A. Creative Challenge
• Written and spoken language is an obvious barrier to cross-cultural
communication. Firms commonly make mistakes in translating ad headlines
and copy. Several of these mistakes are highlighted in the text at this point.
• Picturing is commonly used in cross-cultural communication in a widely held
belief that pictures are less culturally bound than words are, and that pictures
can speak to many cultures at once. International marketers are increasingly
using ads that feature few words and rely on pictures to communicate. There
are problems with picturing as well: picturing is culturally bound,
photography can be difficult for some cultures to interpret, and symbols that
are common and harmless in one culture can be unusual or threatening in
another.
• A few expressions are universal and positive—like a smile or a mother
cradling an infant. Quiz students on other symbols or expressions they think
have universal, positive meaning.
B. Media Challenge
Of all the challenges faced by marketers promoting in international markets, the
media challenge may be the greatest.
1. Media Availability and Coverage
• Some international markets simply have too few media options.
• Many countries have dozens of subcultures and languages within their
borders, each with its own newspapers and radio stations. This
complicates the problem of deciding which combination will achieve the
desired coverage of the market.
• The mere presence of a particular medium in a country does not
necessarily make it useful for marketers if there are restrictions on
accepting advertising. On the German government-owned stations,
television advertising is banned on Sundays and holidays, and restricted to
four 5-minute blocks on other days.
• Newspapers are the most localized media worldwide and require the
greatest amount of local market knowledge to be correctly used. Many
newspapers (particularly regional papers) are positioned in the market
based on a particular political philosophy.
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 7 t
• Several global television networks have been made possible by satellite
technology. MTV estimates its worldwide audience to be more than 300
million viewers.
• Another new option is direct broadcast by satellite (DBS). DBS
transmissions are received by households through a small, low-cost
receiving dish. STAR TV, which stands for Satellite Televisions Asian
Region, currently sends BBC, U.S., Bollywood, and local programming to
300 million households in 53 countries across Asia.
2. Media Costs and Pricing
• Some markets have literally hundreds of media options—hundreds of
Turkish newspapers, for example. Whenever a different medium is
chosen, separate payment and placement must be made.
• In many markets, media prices are subject to negotiation—no matter what
the official rate cards say.
• Global coverage is an expensive proposition. A four-color ad in Readers
Digest can cost about half a million dollars.
C. Regulatory Challenge
Regulatory restrictions on international advertising are many and varied, reflecting
cultural values within markets. The range and specificity of regulation can be
aggravatingly complex.
This regulatory complexity is now spreading to new, emerging media options. For
instance, the European Union has strict regulations protecting citizens’ privacy, which
limit marketers’ access to kinds of data readily available in North America. Marketers
must be sensitive to the fact that advertising regulations can impose limitations on the
following:
• The types of products that can be advertised
• The types of appeals that can be used
• The times during which ads for certain products can appear on television
• Advertising to children
• The use of foreign languages (and talent) in advertisements
• The use of national symbols, such as flags and government seals
• The taxes levied on advertising expenditures
III. Ad Agencies for International Marketing
PPT 7-9, 7-10
An experienced and astute agency can help a marketer deal with the creative, media, and
regulatory challenges just discussed. In some markets, like China, a local affiliate is
absolutely essential to deal with government and media bureaucracy.
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 8 t
Marketers in the United States have three basic alternatives in choosing an agency to help
them prepare and place advertising in other countries: a global agency, an international
affiliate, or a local agency.
A. Global Agencies
• Advantages: A global agency will know the marketer’s products and current
advertising programs (presuming it handles the domestic advertising duties).
The geographic proximity of marketers to the agency headquarters can often
ease planning and preparation of ads. The size of a global agency can be a
benefit through economies of scale and political leverage.
• Disadvantage: Distance from the local culture. Exporting meaning is never
easy.
B. International Affiliates
• Many agencies do not own and operate worldwide offices but do have
established foreign-market international affiliates to handle clients’
international advertising needs.
• These agencies often join a network of foreign agencies or take minority
ownership positions in several foreign agencies. The benefit of this
arrangement is that the marketer typically has access to a large number of
international agencies that can provide local market expertise.
• The risk of these arrangements is that while an international affiliate will
C. Local Agencies
The final option is for an advertiser to choose a local agency in every foreign
market where advertising will be carried out.
• Local agencies have the same advantages as the affiliate agencies. They will
be knowledgeable about the culture and local market conditions.
• Such agencies tend to have well-established contacts for market information,
production, and media buys.
• With local agencies, there is less of a tendency for standardization of the
creative effort. Each agency in each market will feel compelled to provide a
unique creative execution. This lack of standardization can be costly.
• Working with local agencies can create communications problems, increasing
the risk of delays and errors in execution.
IV. Globalized versus Localized Campaigns
PPT 7-11, 7-12
This key issue involves the extent to which a campaign will be standardized versus
localized across markets. Globalized campaigns use the same message and creative
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 9 t
execution across all (or most) international markets. Localized campaigns involve
preparing different messages and creative executions for each foreign market a firm has
entered.
The issues in deciding:
• First, the extent to which the brand can be standardized across markets
• Next, the degree to which brand promotion in international markets can use a
common appeal, versus being customized for each market—an issue that has
been widely debated
Those who favor the globalized campaigns argue that standardization of messages should
occur whenever possible, adapting the message only when absolutely necessary.
Those who argue for the localized approach see each country or region as a unique
communication context and claim that the only way to achieve promotional success is to
develop separate campaigns for each market.
The two fundamental arguments for globalized campaigns are based on potential cost
savings and creative advantages. Having one standard theme to communicate allows a
marketer to focus on a uniform brand or corporate image worldwide, develop plans more
quickly, and make maximum use of good ideas.
In recent years, several aspects of the global marketplace have changed in such a way that
the conditions for globalized campaigns are more favorable:
• Global communications: Worldwide cable networks have resulted in
television becoming a truly global communications medium.
• Global youth: Global communications, global travel, and the demise of
communism may have created common norms and values among youth
around the world.
• Universal demographic and lifestyle trends: Demographic and lifestyle trends
that emerged in the 1980s in the United States are manifesting themselves in
markets around the world. More working women, more single-person
households, increasing divorce rates, and fewer children per household are
now global demographic phenomena that affect lifestyles.
• The Americanization of consumption values: Images of America and
American values are gaining popularity worldwide. Europeans find the rugged
American image appealing. Russian consumers are eating hamburgers and
drinking Budweiser. Japanese consumers are starting to insist on American
labels. However, events such as the U.S. failure to ratify the Kyoto treaty on
greenhouse gas emissions and its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have yielded a
backlash against American brands in some countries.
Arguments against globalization center on issues relating to local market requirements
and cultural constraints within markets:
• Does the target audience in each different country understand and place the
same level of importance on brand features or attributes?
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 10 t
• If a globalized campaign defies local customs, values, and regulations, or
ignores local competition, it has a reduced chance of being successful.
• In some cases, local managers do not appreciate the value of globalized
campaigns and will not support their development and local placement.
SOLUTIONS TO REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What was a key factor that contributed to the success of the “Commander Safeguard”
ad campaign in Pakistan? Would the company have likely seen the same results from the
campaign if it had borrowed an existing American superhero instead of creating one
specifically for the Pakistani market?
The success of the “Captain Safeguard” campaign, which saw sales of Safeguard soap
2. What perils did Japanese automaker Toyota face during its campaign to launch the
Prado Land Cruiser in China? How did Toyota ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi respond to
the controversy?
3. In the discussion of customs and rituals, this chapter described challenges marketers
faced in Asia when representing husbands and wives in ads for vacuum cleaners. Why
was this issue challenging in Asia? Where else in the world would you expect that
advertisers would face a similar challenge?
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 11 t
4. If you were creating a media strategy for a global brand promotion campaign, what
emphasis would you put on newspapers in executing your strategy? What factors
complicate the value of newspapers for achieving broad market coverage?
Newspapers are probably the last medium one would consider in attempting to
execute a global campaign. Tremendous local market knowledge is required to use
5. Explain the appeal of new media options such as direct broadcast by satellite and the
Internet for marketers that have created globalized brand promotion campaigns.
The World Wide Web and direct TV broadcast by satellite (DBS) are exciting
developments for advertisers who take a global perspective. In a global brand
6. Compare and contrast the advantages of global versus local ad agencies for
implementing international advertising.
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 13 t
SOLUTIONS TO EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISES
1. Select a particular brand or product category that you think would succeed
internationally with the right integrated marketing communication (IMC) campaign. To
accompany the product’s global launch, you are asked to identify the best spokesperson
for the product—someone with broad appeal to international audiences. Who would you
choose and why? Explain how a celebrity endorsement, in particular, is the best fit for
your product’s international launch.
Students should enjoy thinking through this exercise as they seek to match a favorite
celebrity with the global brand promotion trends discussed in the chapter. Student
2. Conduct an informal study on the concept of picturing in cross-cultural
communication. Using library resources, examine a collection of international magazines
or newspapers that include ads with photographic representations. What contrasts or
similarities can you identify when you compare the ads to American promotions for
similar products? What can you infer about the values of a culture based on the types of
photographic images that are used?
3. Working in small teams, imagine that you have been hired by cosmetic giant
Maybelline to promote its various product lines in China’s expanding markets. Identify
some of the cultural barriers the company could face—addressing specifically questions
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 14 t
about economic conditions, values, customs, and current product use patterns—and then
recommend whether the company should adopt a globalized or localized campaign to
extend its reach in China.
China’s rapid economic growth has created a vast new class of middle-income
consumers and a powerful new consumer demographic for health and beauty
have great impact with China’s emerging middle class. Different attitudes toward
women, makeup, and personal spending all make strong arguments for a campaign
4. While this chapter discusses the Americanization of consumption values—a
phenomenon that has benefited many U.S. firms—American brands also have faced
backlash in recent years, as some U.S. companies suffer from perceptions of arrogance,
cultural insensitivity, and an overemphasis on consumerism. Working in small groups,
brainstorm ways that American business and advertising executives could counteract
negative perceptions about the role of the United States in the global economy. Present
your ideas to the class.
As part of this exercise, students should be encouraged to first consider some of the
U.S. television programming, music, and other cultural offerings play in that
discussion and whether American business can influence pop culture offerings. Other
POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS
Use the Instructor PowerPoint files to pace your instruction and provide class notes on
key ideas and themes. Each presentation provides a slide-by-slide coordination with the
chapter’s learning outcomes, definitions, and visuals. Encourage students to use the
Chapter 7: The International Market Environment for Brand Promotion ❖ 15 t
accompanying Student PowerPoint presentation to align and reinforce classroom
instruction with studying outside of the classroom.
VIDEOS
To view the two videos for this chapter, go to the PROMO book companion website,
www.cengage.com/login.
(*) Indicates the correct answer in the multiple-choice video questions.
Coca-Cola: Roger Milla
1. In the Coca-Cola “Roger Milla” video, what is the tagline of the online promotion?
2. This video is a cross promotion for Coca-Cola and
2. In your view, would the Coca-Cola “Roger Milla” video be a good promotion in both
developed and developing countries? Use concepts from the book and from the video
elements to support your argument.
A good answer would include the notion that both Coca-Cola and soccer are
3. The Coca-Cola “Roger Milla” video seeks what specific outcomes?
4. The book discusses the concept of globalized versus localized promotional campaigns.
In your view, is the Coca-Cola “Roger Milla” promotional video likely to be effective
without localization? Why or why not?
