Advertising Standardization Problems in Foreign Countries - Essay Example

This research paper explores the problems that are faced by the marketers who are venturing into international advertising.

            International advertising faces the following problems while attempting to standardize its advertising. First, the advertising or marketing manager faces the problem of language interpretation. Different countries have different languages they use in communication as their national languages in their countries. For instance, most of the countries now are majorly using English as their business language. There are many more countries that use different languages like French, Chinese, German language to mention only but a few. This means that for the marketing manager to think of standardizing the advertising internationally, he has to first think of how the message will reach the audience or target market. Communication language is usually an issue when it comes to international business. The language has to be translated into the national language of the countries among which the advertising has to be standardized. It is therefore very expensive to translate the adverts into the foreign language before it is advertised. Besides, the advertisement manager finds it very hard to effectively supervise international business because he may not understand the language at a glance. It is more convenient to standardize advertisement among countries with the same language speaking citizens than those countries that vary in the language speaking.

            Communication media has remained a question unanswered when it comes to international advertising, especially international standardization of advertising. This is due to a number of issues that follow. First, there is a question of whether the advertisement media is available in foreign countries or not. For the standardization of international advertising to work, there must be the availability of the advertisement media among all the countries in which the advertising is to be practiced. For example, some third-world countries have limited access to the internet because of poverty while others like the United States of America have computer technology advantages. It means then that for the standardization of the advertising among countries to prosper the communication media should not only be available in all the target countries but also effectively and conveniently used.

            Advertising cost versus price is a fundamental issue associated with the standardization of advertising. In some countries the price of goods is low but the cost of advertising is high while in some countries the price of goods is high with low advertisement costs. The countries with high prices of goods have chances of investing heavily in advertising because it will pay back the cost of advertising. On the other hand, the countries with low prices of goods may not attract heavy investment in the advertisement because it may not pay back according to the higher cost of advertisement. This imposes a serious problem to the advertisement manager regarding standardization of the advertising. Advertising cost has to be paid back in order for the business to make profits. It is because of this reason that the prices have to vary from country to country in order to ensure the cost of advertising has been realized. This renders a major problem in advertising standardization among the target countries.

            Varied international policy on advertising imposes another problem on the standardization of advertising in different countries. Some countries do not allow certain adverts through certain media while others do. It is difficult to advertise in a country of such policy because it will be an infringement of the laws of that country which is not right. In this response, it is not possible to standardize the advertisement in countries with two opposing policies because there will be conflict.

Due to this problem, it is not possible to standardize a red closured advert between the two countries. In fact, it may ruin the image of the organization in the foreign country where the advert has been launched. The biggest problem with a global advertising campaign is that you can not expect people from different regions of the world to respond in the same way to the same message. You can have a global campaign with regional focuses based on the values that the local region finds important. For example, Mexico will have a different value system than the United States so you can not have the same message.