International Marketing, 5th Edition

Advertising can be affected in several ways by local regulations. The availability of media (when and how much) is determined by local authorities. This may be due to the argument that advertising is wasteful. In some countries, there is an interruption of television broadcast in the early evening in order to conserve electricity consumption while encouraging TV viewers to engage in other useful activities (e.g., students' homework).

Canada and Mexico are among countries that have preclearance requirements for advertisements on health-related products. Many countries prohibit deceptive advertisements and sometimes comparative advertising. The rationale is to protect consumer interests. Furthermore, nationalism may intrude in the form of a ban on the use of foreign languages and materials in advertising.

There are several reasons why it is difficult to buy TV time in many countries. First, television is not available on a nationwide basis because of the lack of TV stations, relay stations, and cable TV. Second, it is not uncommon for TV stations to be state controlled and government operated. As such, the stations are managed with the public welfare rather than a commercial objective in mind. Finally, the cost of air time can be expensive.

In the case of newspaper space, the general unavailability is the result of overseas newspapers' having a fixed and small number of pages for each edition, including the Sunday paper. More pages cannot be added to accommodate advertisements because both paper and equipment are limited.

As in the case of China, CCTV is China's only national network as well as the most popular one. The network reaches 400 million TV owners. Each year, about 100 companies fiercely compete in an auction for TV adverting time on CCTV. After all, the advertising slots can either make or break a company.

Radio is king because of several reasons. A radio set is inexpensive and affordable. It is a free medium for listeners because the programs are free and costs of operating and maintaining a radio set are almost negligible. Furthermore, illiteracy poses no problem. As a communication medium, radio is entertaining, up-to-date, and portable. The medium penetrates from the highest to the lowest socioeconomic levels.

One medium in which the United States seems to lag behind in terms of per-capita advertising expenditures is outdoor advertising. This is a dominant medium in Europe, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and most LDCs. Screen (cinema) advertising is another. The usual practice is for a theater to begin its program with a showing of slides and commercials of advertised products.

The standardization school questions the traditional belief in the heterogeneity of the market. It assumes that better and faster communication has forged a convergence of art, literature, media availability, tastes, thoughts, religious beliefs, culture, living conditions, language, and, therefore, advertising.

The opposite view of the standardization school is the individualization school. This school of thought holds that advertisers must particularly make note of the differences among countries. These differences make it necessary to develop specific advertising programs to achieve impact in the local markets.

The compromise school of thought holds a position between the two extreme schools. While recognizing local differences and cautioning against a wholesale or automatic use of standardization, this middle-of-the-road school holds that it may be possible to use standardized techniques under some conditions. As such, these conditions need to be identified.

Because of the lack of definition of standardized advertising and the difficulty in directly testing the effectiveness of standardization, any support of this school of thought must come from the validation of its main assumption — consumer homogeneity. As stated in the chapter, at the present time, the results of the literature review of management responses, consumer characteristics, and consumer responses indicate that there is no theoretical nor empirical evidence to support the standardization perspective in its present form. For a detailed discussion, please consult Sak Onkvisit and John J. Shaw, ‘Standardized International Advertising: A Review and Critical Evaluation of the Theoretical and Empirical Evidence’ Columbia Journal of World Business 22 (Fall 1987): 43–55. This article has received considerable attention internationally.

Standardization and market segmentation are not compatible strategies. As a rule, when one is applicable, the other will not be. If the necessary segmentation criteria are met, the market is heterogeneous and should thus be segmented. On the other hand, if other countries cannot meet these requirements, advertising standardization may be more appropriate.