When communicating to consumers worldwide basis there is always an option of localizing or standardizing concepts and executions. De Mooij, M. (2010) defines ultimate form of Standardization as offering identical products at identical price via identical distribution channels supported by identical sales and promotion programs. Variables affecting Standardizing of concepts and executions include the product, the organizational structure of the company, business environment and the consumers’ .Various companies that opt to standardize do so to maximize on the economies of scale. Examples of companies that have become global brands due to standardizing in marketing include Mac Donald’s and Coca-Cola.
Standardizing of concepts and executions is riddled with various problems, we have to note that needs may be universal but attitudes, motivations and expressions are not same. The main difficulty is cultural differences all over the world. Culture entails beliefs, values and customs. Diversity in culture is so vast that an advert that is made in America might not be culturally acceptable in Asia. In advertising, cultural aspects of the target audience must be depicted in both the concept and execution of the advert; this will give the advert an edge. However when it comes to standardization in global marketing there is no single culture, thus it makes it less appealing.
The attitude and perception differs between adverts that are made locally and the global ones. Consumers have better attitude toward the brand for local advertising than foreign advertising. They accept the brand using local ads and perceive it having higher quality than those using foreign-made adverts. The brands using locally made adverts seem to have put an effort in reaching out to the consumers than in standardization whereby similar adverts are used all over the world.
Using global standardization to market products has a higher risk of losing out to local competitors who can tailor their products and marketing efforts to suit the needs of that local population. For instance, if you run a global fast-food chain that sells the same hamburgers internationally, in some places you may lose customers to local competitors who can customize hamburgers to what is popular in the area.
Since standardizing involves a similar pricing strategy, the demographic aspect of various populations comes in. Not every market has the same wants and desires’; in fact going to Mac Donald’s is actually a luxury in many developing countries unlike in the US where it is a normal thing. Different countries have different economic statuses; a poorer country will not respond well to such marketing strategy due to their low disposable income, this will work best on developed economies.
The last difficulty facing standardizing of concepts and execution is the language barrier, according to Theodosiou & Leonidous (2002), there has to be a need of adaptation for the advertising messages. In certain countries the advert can be translated to the local language; however in some countries it is not possible to be translated hence a whole new advert should be created since it is impossible to translate. For instance, …