3.1 Ad creation, pre market testing and localisation

Advertising creation can vary enormously from one company promoting their products or services across borders to another company. Whereas real economic benefits, dominantly economies of scale, can be obtained by standardising advertising across borders, many companies choose not to do so, but rather to rely on local knowledge.

In order to create a commercial, an advertising agency is usually instructed to create the overall concept in line with the marketing objectives, create a set of different test commercials and pre-test the commercials for effectiveness. This is a crucial step for advertising creation, and often takes a relatively long time, in which the test commercials are tested qualitatively and quantitatively in focus groups, through questionnaires, in test markets, sample areas and so on. After successful testing, the real commercial is created, and finally airtime for the commercial is booked or auctioned (either directly or through a media agency). During and after the commercial is running, further tests are usually carried out in order to optimise advertising targets with real out comes, and commercials may be adjusted depending on the outcome.

In a survey of the Fortune 500 US-based multinational companies, Hite and Fraser (1988) reported, that 50% of these companies used a foreign (i.e. local to the market) agency for their advertising, 21% used an international agency or network (i.e. an agency that maintained local offices in the target market), and 18% used a foreign affiliates of an in-house-agency. In the same report, Hite and Fraser also observe a steep decline in the trend to use the same advertising (standardised advertising) in different markets. Earlier reports (Sorenson and Wiechmann, 1975; Boddewya, Soehl and Picard, 1986) reported that in 1975 only 20% of multinational companies utilised localised versions of their advertising, in 1986 the figure reported had grown to 39%. In their own survey, Hite and Fraser (1988) reported, that 36% of companies that advertise across borders use localised advertising, and that a further 56% use a combination strategy (such as the same images, different text). Only 8% used standardised advertising across borders. They also reported, that 95% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed to change the language of their advertising depending on the target market, 59% the product attributes, 69% the models, 58% the scenic background and 31% the colours used. When carefully observed, this trend holds true for a large amount of European advertising. A number of companies use completely different commercials in the UK, the Netherlands and/or Germany, such as the German brands Müller and Holsten Pils. In Germany Müller's commercials focus on the health benefits, whereas in the UK the commercials emphasise the taste of the yoghurt. Holsten's German advertising features friendship and achievement set on a sailing boat at sea, whereas the UK advertising is a Monty Python style sketch set in a bar. Other commercials use the same images, but change the text completely: such as Max factor's commercials featuring Madonna. In the UK, Madonna talks about how superficial life as a superstar is, and the lipstick is a mean used to seduce an attractive co-actor. In Germany, Madonna talks about how important it is to look good even in a kissing scene, and there is little evidence of intended seduction of the co-actor at all.

3.2 Values, appeals, content and style

In researching advertising across borders a number of terms are used to describe what is said in a commercial or how things are said in a commercial. All of this type of research focuses primarily on the message of advertising, taking both the visual and the audible component into account. Most researchers have paid little interest in execution or objectives, which may influence the advertising message. Both execution and objectives are taken a priori as being equal across countries. This limitation should be clearly pointed out, as it may account for some of the differences observed.

I have divided four main areas of research, with all overlapping or influencing each other to some extent:

• Appeals (values) research, looking primarily at all or some of the advertising appeals used in commercials.
• Information cues research, trying to identify the amount and type of information that is presented, usually about a product, in a commercial.
• Communication and creative strategy research, looking at the actual advertising, communication or creative strategy, or parts thereof, used in a commercial.
  

Frequently researchers have combined certain areas. For example, Mueller (1996) in her study about beer advertising in the UK and the US looked for selected appeals as well as some communication styles in commercials.

The terms "appeals" and "values" are used loosely in the literature to describe the traditional notion of "advertising appeals". In their textbook "Advertising - Principles and Practice", Wells, Burnett and Moriarty (1995) give the following description of appeals:

As this definition suggests, appeals make the product attractive to the consumer, and are hence emphasised in advertising for the product. However, they do not necessarily represent product attributes, nor do they have to be realistically connected to the product at all. De facto they are often used to set a desired atmosphere or as a means to "connect" with the target group. As such, they are "built" into the commercial and designed to represent the supposed values of the desired target group. For example, a product that has housewives as a target group may show, as an appeal, pictures of a happy family - which is thought to represent a value of the target group, or at least a desired state. Also, for example beer in itself has little sex appeal - however this appeal is frequently used in beer advertising (Dahl, 2000). The combination of "sex appeal", displayed in the advertising connected to the consumption of that particular brand of beer, may however make the product attractive to the potential consumer, as it may represent a widely held value in the target group. Connected to the product, this may make the product more appealing to the target group. Clearly, not everybody will have the same values, and the appeals that are used do not necessarily actually appeal to all consumers - even within the target group. However, they usually are chosen to represent values thought to be held by the target group as a whole. The advertiser aims to link the set of appeals used in the commercial with the product in the mind of the consumer, in order to enhance and position the product, the product image and perception. They are used strategically to influence consumer perception of the product (such as drinking beer = success with women) and hence to increase consumer readiness to purchase - or product appeal. Understood as such, they can be regarded as an active part in positioning the product in the market place and enhance the product's image, by associating desirable aspects to the product.

Kotler (1997) differentiates three different types of appeals: Rational appeals, emotional appeals and moral appeals. He classifies rational appeals as "appealing to the audience's self interest". Typically they refer to the quality, value or performance of the product. Emotional appeals "attempt to stir up negative or positive emotions" (ibid.), and include fear, guilt, joy. Although Kotler makes a reference to negative emotions, I would argue, that these are turned into positive appeals in commercials. For example the negative "fear" appeal is used only when the product can actually provide safety. Finally moral appeals "are directed to the audience's sense of what is right and proper."(ibid.) These may include such appeals as ecological appeals and nationalism.

The often interchanging use of appeals and values by some researchers can be explained when looking at the interaction that is necessary between the two. Appeals are used to appeal to the values a consumer holds, and as such, values are the underlying source of appeals. Wells, Burnett and Moriarty (1995) define values and tentatively describe the interaction as:

This extract clarifies this interaction to some extent: Knowing that people value personal safety, and that a product X can enhance the personal safety, advertising for product X may use a safety appeal. So strictly argued, the safety value (or the desire to be safe) is held by the consumer - and the appeal is what is expressed in the advertisement in order to suggest to the consumer that their desired state of personal safety can be enhanced. The appeal hence represents the underlying value.

This definition of values comes relatively close to the definition of values given by Hofstede (1994):

To continue the above example: The advertising for product X, appealing for enhanced personal safety, displays a preference for a state of safety. And as such can be interpreted as displaying the preference for the state of enhanced personal safety (or in other words: the value of personal safety). Hence, if an advertisement displays a happy family, it can be understood to use the family appeal to represent family values.

In order to avoid any further confusion of the situation, for the remainder of this document, I will refer to "appeals" as the values that are expressed in advertising, by using appeals, or the appeals that are displayed in advertising representing certain values. I will use values strictly when this represents a tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others by human beings in the real world.

The use of appeals, and with them the possibility of a distorted representation of reality, has been a topic of discussion for a considerable time. In 1983 Pollay published a coding framework for the identification of cultural appeals (actually, he called them values) in advertising, primarily as a response to the discussion over the cultural consequences of advertising appeals and what values of society these reflect.

By reviewing a variety of advertising related literature, as well as literature and values research in other disciplines, such as psychology, sociology and the humanities, Pollay created a list of 42 appeals most commonly found in advertising. He notes, that advertising does reflect a somewhat different set of values as can be found in a society in general (Pollay, 1986), a notion which he termed the "distorted mirror", and which has lead to a significant debate over the subject matter. Clearly, advertising will attempt to have positive appeals associated with the product, and hence lead to a distorted reflection of reality. Although Kotler (1997) includes negative appeals, such as fear or guilt, in his examples, these will normally be turned "positive" in advertising, and are included as such in the Pollay list: For example the fear of an accident is resolved by demonstrating the safety features of a car (safety appeal).

Other researchers who carried out research into advertising appeals have developed different lists of possible values, often because they only tested for certain appeals rather than a complete set of appeals. For example Mueller (1996) and Cheng & Schweitzer (1996) used limited lists developed by them to reflect their line of enquiry. However, both take their definitions from Pollay's original work. As such, Pollay's framework is the most complete set of possible appeals with definitions. It is also "pre-tested" as it is derived from previously published material, and is generally considered to be complete. As such may be the most suitable instrument both for probing a complete set of appeals, if used as a whole, or a limited set of appeals, if used in parts.

Clearly, in order to be effective, advertising has to appeal to the positive values that are held in the target group, or taken at large, the target society. If advertising is "out of touch" with the target group, it may alienate the target group, as the consumer can no longer identify with the product. It is hence essential for the advertising to reflect at least a proportion of the values held by the target group, or society at large. As Hofstede and others have demonstrated, values can vary considerably between cultures. Some cultures may be comfortable with a relatively high level of uncertainty - if expressed in appeals, then it can be expected that advertising in these cultures will make less use of safety appeals than advertising from a culture where the culture is less comfortable with uncertainty. Equally, in a society that holds highly individualistic values, it can be expected that advertising in general will use more appeals to individual achievement than in a society that holds dominantly collectivist values.

As such, advertising appeals are not a mere representation of a culture's values at large, but they represent a selective sample of positive and desired values of that culture. They are in fact a "distorted mirror", a mirror that represents idealistic, rather than realistic, values.

Other researchers focused more narrowly on the information content, rather than the appeals as a whole, in advertising. Information cues in advertising are generally understood to relate to pieces of information relating to the product or service that is being offered, the content in which the product is used or consumed is generally disregarded. A major tool for research focusing on information content is the Resnick-Stern Content Classification System (Stern, Dean & Resnick, 1981).

Information cue research, such as Weinberger and Spotts (1989) or Maenaka, Miracle and Chang (1991), count either the total or the unique number of information cues presented in commercials.

Clearly, this type of research is far more limited in its approach, as it is more concerned with the product attributes that are displayed, rather than the entire message. It is however quite useful in order to evaluate the "directness" of advertising, and as such can be related more evidently to Hall's high context/low context concepts, rather than to broader based cultural dimension concepts, such as Hofstede's dimensions as a whole. If counting the information cues present in advertising, a large number may suggest a low context society, whereas a low number would possibly suggest a high context culture. However, the number of information cues may equally be related to uncertainty avoidance, as it seems plausible, that in a largely risk averse culture the consumer may want to have more information about a product than in a less risk averse culture, as suggested by Usunier, 1999.

In comparison with Pollay based research, this type of research is not suitable for research into values, however it is far more differentiated in respect to the information content that is provided, and what product attributes are explained explicitly in the commercial message. As such, it provides a more detailed picture of target market consumer expectation than the more general values research, however it provides less opportunity for descriptive advertising context analysis. This is particularly evident, as certain appeals as classified by Pollay are considerably expanded. For example the "effective" appeal is split up in to three Resnick-Stern cues: Quality, performance and taste. The "safety" appeal is repeated in two cues: Guarantees and warranties and safety.

Another aspect that has frequently been looked at is the overall communication or creative strategy that is used in advertising. One frequently used measurement system analyses if the advert presented in the form of a lecture, with a narrator speaking about the product (typical of direct sales commercials), or if a "story" or drama is created in the commercial. This distinction was originally developed by Wells (1988) and later adopted and expanded by Deighton, Romer and McQueen (1989).

Typically, a lecture-type commercial will use hard sales strategy to convince the consumer, whereas a drama will be more soft sell approach. Equally, a lecture-type commercial will usually contain more information cues than a drama-type commercial, due to the nature of the presentation. Looking at the communication style used, direct speech can be expected to be predominant in lecture type commercials, as the narrator usually addresses the audience directly ("Call now"). Indirect speech is logically more dominant in drama-type commercials, where the characters can be expected to speak to each other as the plot develops.

A slightly different flavour of creative strategy research, and more differentiated than the above, focuses on a variety of possible creative strategies that are frequently used in commercials. Most dominantly used are Simon's Creative Strategies (1971). Martenson (1987), researching advertising in the US and Sweden, defined the strategies as follows:

This method again is clearly more differentiated, and allows for a greater variety of creative styles to be analysed than the lecture/drama method. It is however quite limited in its approach and usability to analyse the interaction between values and advertising, as it focuses more on an additional preference for a certain creative style or styles in a country. It is however well suited for that, and possibly a good tool for a more descriptive research than pure value centred research.

Again, this method makes use of communication style and the use of linguistic styles, such as a preference for indirect and direct speech, however the link is less clearly visible than with the lecture/drama method.

Another stylistic or creative method that is frequently referred to and researched is the use of humour in advertising. This stands out somewhat, as it doesn't represent a full creative style, and is not linked directly within the area of information cue or appeals research.

As can be seen from the above examples of research instruments used, the focus of research into (cross-cultural) advertising can be radically different, though related. Research into appeals is evidently the most broadly focused research, whereas information cues and strategy research takes a far narrower, however more explicit, focus. All of theses research foci make a useful contribution to identify more clearly how advertising is influenced by culture, and if used in combination, have the potential to provide an extremely powerful analysis of advertising practice.