Marketing Communications

238 CHAPTER 7 ADVERTISING

Table 7.4 Positioning of countries on cultural dimensions

Countries scoring high on

left-dimension attributes

Countries scoring

average

Countries scoring high on

right-dimension attributes

Collectivism East and West African countries

Latin American countries

Portugal

Arab countries, Greece,

Japan, Spain, Turkey

Australia, Switzerland,

Scandinavian countries,

France, UK, USA, Germany,

the Netherlands, Belgium

Individualism

Low power Scandinavian countries, Austria,

Switzerland, Germany, Ireland,

USA, UK, the Netherlands

Spain, Taiwan, Greece,

Japan, Italy, Portugal

Malaysia, Guatemala, Arab

countries, West African

countries, Philippines

High power

Feminine Scandinavia, Portugal, the

Netherlands, Turkey

Belgium, France, Greece,

Spain, Arab countries

Austria, Canada, UK, Ireland,

Italy, Japan, Switzerland, USA

Masculine

Uncertainty

tolerant

Scandinavian countries, UK,

USA, Ireland, Canada, India

Arab countries, Austria,

Switzerland, Germany

Belgium, France, Greece,

Japan, Portugal, Spain

Uncertainty

avoidance

Short-term

orientation

Pakistan, Nigeria, Canada, UK,

USA, Australia, Germany,

Poland, Sweden

India, Thailand,

Hungary, Singapore,

the Netherlands

China, Hong Kong,

Taiwan, Japan, South Korea

Long-term

orientation

High

context

Japan, China, Arab countries,

Latin American countries

Italy, Spain, France, UK North American countries,

Scandinavian countries,

Germany, Switzerland

Low context

Summary

Advertising is any paid, non-personal communications through various media by an iden tifi ed

brand or company. It is one of the most visible tools of the communications mix. Advertising

campaign development consists of a number of stages. Firstly, advertising strategy has to be

decided on: who are the target groups of the campaign; what are the objectives; and what

messages are going to be conveyed? At the very core of the advertising process is the develop-

ment of a creative idea. Companies have to write a creative brief before the advertising agency

can start to do its job. Creativity is hard to describe, but bringing the message in an original,

novel and appealing way comes close. In general, two broad types of creative appeals,

rational and emotional, can be used to develop a campaign, although mixed forms also

exist. Emotional appeals are ads whose main purpose is to elicit aff ective responses and to

convey an image. Rational appeals, on the other hand, contain information cues such as price,

value, quality, performance, components, availability, taste, warranties, new ideas, etc. For

both rational and emotional appeals, diff erent formats or execution strategies can be used.

Rational appeals may, for instance, make use of a talking head, a demonstration, a problem

solution, a testimonial, a slice of life, a drama or a (direct or indirect) comparison with

competitors. Emotional appeals may be based on humour, fear, warmth, eroticism, music or

the like. Rational and emotional appeals may further feature diff erent types of endorsers:

ordinary people, experts or celebrities. None of the execution strategies works in all situations

and for all target groups; for example, although everyone agrees that emotional techniques

are capable of attracting attention, it is by no means certain that they get the message across

in the manner intended. Th erefore caution should be taken to select the right technique. In

cross-cultural advertising campaigns, substantial diff erences in cultural characteristics have

to be taken into account.

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