Branding and International Advertising - Term Paper Example

 Branding and International Advertising Branding is more qualitative rather than quantitative. It could be a sign, a symbol, term, design or name or a combination of them that is intended to distinguish the goods of one manufacturer from those of another manufacturer. It is aimed towards making products and services unique. This can be carried out through advertising campaigns but with an unswerving theme. Branding is aimed at attracting customers and retaining them. It is not aimed at convincing the customers to choose a company over another, but at getting your forecasts to view the company as the only solution to the problem at hand. For branding to be efficacious, the wants and the needs of the consumer have to be kept in mind (AAKER, 1993, p. 32). There is a variety of objectives achieved via branding: motivation of the buyer, user loyalty is concreted, credibility is confirmed, the message is delivered clearly, and the target forecasts are connected emotionally. In marketing communication, it is referred to as a foundational piece. The goal for branding is to attain the long-term competitive advantage hence it is both a marketing and financial concept. It is more of a qualitative term rather than the thought of it as being related to the product thus it is immaterial. It is an idea that is altering and translates the tangible to something that is of value. The old notion of marketing involving the product has been outdone by the fact that the brand name has taken over the market. Basically, marketing relies on the brand name. The brand name wins over the loyalty of customers in a market. An illustration: customers who are loyal to products from Unilever are deemed to buy any product as long as the manufacturer is Unilever. This is showed the extent to which the brand name has the effect on the customers and in the marketing sector. Research has it that brand is more than a logo or a name, but it is the relationship with a customer. A brand name conveys a variety of ideas, possibly: a thought, emotion, mind, heart, feeling, a phrase, or a word. This depends on what is to be communicated to the customers (Dunn, 2004, p. 10). The mind and the heart of a customer gets what the marketers want them to get via the branding name. People may buy brands based on image, awareness, knowledge, experience, trust, perception, feelings, and the perceived quality. International advertising involves conveying the message to target audiences in different countries. Audiences of target differ from country to another depending on their response to emotional appeals or humors, interpretation and perception of signs and symbols, the language spoken and the literacy levels too. The organization of the advertising function varies with a firm. Multinational firms have advertising decisions and budgets centralized and use similar or a limited number of advertising agencies worldwide. Decentralization of budgets and placed in the hands of local subsidiaries is practiced and hence a wide use of local advertising agencies. International advertising is a communication process carried out in many cultures that differ in communication styles, consumption patterns, and values. It is a business activity that involves advertising agencies, and advertisers who create advertisements and buy media in different countries (WANG, 2008, p.65). Marketing and advertising are about the consumer rather than the producer. Therefore before, any advertising or marketing plan is implemented, the focus should be on the consumer’s interests. The gap between the two logics is being bridged by the market research; nevertheless its excellence depends on the ability that the producer will think in terms of customer. Branding has affected international advertising in a great way as stated by proponents of the Levitt theory, “developing powerful advertising that crosses international borders, cutting across all lines of values, culture, customs, race, religion, mores, and nationality (Mooij, 1994, p. 24).The brand identity may be global thus worldwide recognition of the same, but the product may not be standard for all the products. An example is the Knorr soup and sauces. The brand is the same but the products are composed of local contents. Although branding identity is global, the products names, signs, and symbols may not be similar in all the countries but the characteristics are the same. An illustration is the Ice-cream produced by Unilever, Ola in Netherlands, Langnese in Russia and Poland. Branding can be termed as a key point for reconfiguring of the existing process of production. It is believed to mediate the product’s supply and demand through the integration, co-ordination, and organization of the use of information. The relationship may be changed if new ideas, feelings, thoughts, mind and heart are incorporated in fresh brand names. The brand name should reflect the present need of customers in the market. Since the beginnings of trade, advertising has been part of the economies of scale. The oldest advertisement written was a Babylonian tablet requesting the return of a slave 3000 years ago. Prior to the newspapers, the modes of advertising were broadsides affixed to walls, shop signs, trees or posts across all streets. A new age of commercial communication was ushered in by the movable type of printing. The first press was set up by William Caxton in England a year before publishing the first advertisement in English in 1477. British newspapers had adopted newspapers as an intrinsic part of their content by the seventeenth century (VASUDEVA, 2006, p. 32). The first American daily newspaper devoted more than three-quarters to advertising. Traditionally, in the 20th century, advertising was carried out via televisions and press media. Lately, there are variety of advertising media like the search webs and the social media where the adverts are placed in the media that marketers prefer. When consumers search the web they receive a consistent branding message despite their location. During this period, the emphasis of advertising was on the product’s performance, price, and construction. The advertisement aimed at familiarizing the newspaper reader with national brand. Cultural imperialism is a practice of separating, distinguishing, promoting, and temporarily injecting the language or culture of one country into another. This has promoted international advertising as it is a form of cultural influence different from other forms by the use of force. International advertising and cultural imperialism share the fact that they are widely spread. International advertising involves marketing of products in the local place of production and also in other countries in the world. Cultural imperialism seeks to inject the culture of one nation to another. It is through cultural imperialism that the American culture has been successful to infiltrate France and china market. The modes of advertising have been adversely affected. The major group targeted is the youth group who are vulnerable to technology. Countries (France and China) have tried to resist the cultural imperialism of America by restricting the access of the cultural programming of America. Cultural imperialism assists in a great way through standardization in advertising. The mode of an advert execution is linked to the culture of the people in a region. An illustration: Nestle company made attempts to transmit their adverts across nations. Therefore, Chile invented an outstanding Nescafe commercial. By a lake there is a little house where a man wakes up to go for fishing and wakes up his son to accompany him. The son gets up and prepares coffee for the father even if he is disappointed just for refreshing. A relationship is built up just through a cup of coffee. This commercial was projected in various markets and the results were completely different. Particularly Paris with the Nestle commercial ecological feelings would be provoked, and it would appear like an environmental statement. When producing a homogenous advert various factors have to be considered, such as language and culture. It is important to take into account the language of the customers and the meaning of various phrases. Reason for this is that the phrases vary from person to another and have different meaning. Therefore, this could result to the brand portraying a very different message from that which is intended. The ideas, words, and images used in international advertising are dominant in the third world countries. Loyalty of customers has been gained through the brand names, signs, and symbols used. An illustration includes Nike, Cocacola, Amazon, Yahoo, amongst many others. Any product that has some of the above names even without further explanations the customers will purchase them to meet their needs. Therefore, it is correct to say that these brands have conquered the market. Cultural imperialism has a positive impact on other countries as it has promoted the technology, democracy, and freedom. The marketing of western cultural commodities (music, film, and literature) has prepared other nations for a capitalist system. The adverts from the western countries have motivated people of other nations to adapt a capitalist system. This has led to independence since it is a free market where an individual gets what they want when they need it. Capitalism is a system where property is owned by people and not a government, communities, and where people work or barter to acquire money so as to acquire more commodities that they need. It involves a free market where people are able to carry out transactions freely by their own judgment. A homogenized global culture can be achieved through a multinational capitalism (HACKLEY, 2010, p. 68). The western countries not only controlled the media, but transmitted their economic values and culture, specifically consumerism and individualism which inherently leads to a capitalist system. According to Boyd-Barret, “A country that is affected by media influence adopts this as a deliberate political or commercial, or simply absorbs the influence unreflectively as the result of the contract.” The concept well describes the processes via which a society is brought into the modern world system and how the dominating section is forced, pressured, attracted, and or times bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to the value and structures of the dominating center of the system. In the case of global advertising, companies look for opportunities to standardize their advertising campaigns. By standardization, we simply mean that the advertising campaigns are made similar across all markets. The main elements of a campaign include the execution of the campaign and the message composed therein. The message and the execution could actually be similar, but some modifications are made here and there. The changes are made to suite the particular group of people in a region and also to match their taste and preferences. As it is well known, the tastes and preferences of a group of consumers vary from sector to another sector or from nation to another. It also varies with age and the gender too (ASPATORE, 2005, p. 63). It is essential when formulating a brand, be it a name, symbol, or even sign, factors such as gender and age should be considered. An illustration: If a market targets youths they ought to use music like Hip hop, or use the hit song of that particular time. With such an advert, the company should expect to have passed on the message as intended. This impacts on the sales of the company as well as productivity. Neo-colonialism is a situation where a nation exerts economic and political control over a less powerful nation or region. The neo-colonial regime got help from international advertising as they used the advertisements to exercise their power fully on other nations. The objectives of international advertising in the era of branding should be: to find out what appeals to the target market? To find out how to please their customers so as to positively impact on productivity of the firm? To find out how to maintain the brand name across the nations so as to attract more customers? To identify ways to cut down on the cost of the advertising campaigns and increasing on the productivity of the company? To find out ways of improving on branding and making evaluations on the impact of the branding in the market. Advertisers should be looking on both building the brand and selling the product too. If the brand name is built, the product will sell as the brand appeals to consumers and their loyalty is extended. Emergence of technology will diversify international advertising and promote cultural imperialism too. With many web pages, companies have been able to include their adverts such that when a consumer is on the web search the advertisement pops out. This has reduced the expenses incurred as a result of advertising campaign (YESHIN, 2006, p. 35). Music plays a key role in advertising and represents opportunities for international advertising. It is believed that the transmission of emotions is better conveyed through music rather than words. The problem of language can be avoided via the use of music in international or national advertising. The space allocated to music plays a more important role than the space for words. Music is used to convey emotions and attract attention of the consumers. Some international advertisements include some parts of a dialogue of famous actors from popular films. Although music in international advertisements is given a key role, words also have an important role in an advert. Stuart argues, “Global mass culture is predominantly American culture”. Hall focuses at the “global cultural sphere as dominated by the graphic and visual arts………dominated by film and television, and by imagery, image, and styles of mass advertising.” Fordism is a manufacturing philosophy whose aim is to attain a higher productivity by standardizing the output, using conveyer assembly lines, and dividing the work into small tasks. On the other hand, Taylorism seeks efficiency from both the machine and the workers, and aims at combining them to one unit, and the emphasis liess on profit maximization and cost minimization. It is named after its pioneer, Henry Ford. Through international advertising, the Fordism has been achieved with no struggles. Besides the positive impacts, there are negative implications. These constitute some western model images that are a cause of grief and sexual consequences in the society, as mirrored in the study conducted on western advertising. The term Occidentalism is used to denote to images of the west. It portrays the western world in a dehumanizing manner. Despite mass culture being a culture that is widely disseminated through the media it has helped generate ideas on how to improve international advertising. The various criticisms from mass culture have led to the emergence of new ideologies that are of help to international advertising. References Dunn, D., 2004. Branding: 6 steps.. In: s.l.:[Oakland Calif.] : Cameron Street Press, . Mooij, M. K. d., 1994. In: Advertising worldwide : concepts, theories and practice of international, multinational and global advertising / [...] XA-GB. s.l.:New York [u.a.] Prentice Hall, pp. 98-150. R., J. O., 2005. THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL EFFECTS OF ADVERTISING. In: Chapter IV. s.l.:s.n. WANG, J. 2008. Brand new China: advertising, media, and commercial culture. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press. AAKER, D. A. 1993. Brand equity & advertising: advertising's role in building strong brands. Hillsdale, NJ u.a, Erlbaum. VASUDEVA, P. K. 2006. International marketing. New Delhi, Excel Books. ASPATORE, INC. 2005. Inside the minds international advertising : successful advertising techniques from agencies around the globe. [Boston, Mass.], Aspatore, Inc. http://www.lib.sfu.ca/cgi-bin/validate/books24x7.cgi?bookid=13306. YESHIN, T. 2006. Advertising. London, Thomson Learning. HACKLEY, C. E. 2010. Advertising and promotion: an integrated marketing communications approach. Los Angeles, SAGE. Read More