In Conslusion...

After writing this blog on international marketing for the semester I have concluded that international marketing is an extremely immense topic that covers an extremely wide range of subjects all relating to marketing and advertising. The thing that makes them specific to international marketing is the fact that they are just that, international. That is what makes it such a broad category. That is part of the reason I chose international marketing as my blogging assignment. Because it encompasses the whole world I felt there would be an abundance of information to write about as well as learn a lot about the marketing throughout the world. After this semester, I’d say I was right, I feel as if I have learned a lot about the topics I wrote about in my blog.

While I was looking over my blog post over the past few months I noticed a few recurring themes that I would like to talk about. One theme that was covered repeatedly in the blog was regulations in marketing abroad. Regulations have been particularly relevant in regards to cigarettes, alcohol, sex in advertising, and junk foods. Two countries that I wrote about, Australia and England are taking great strides to ban the advertising of junk foods in an effort to promote a healthier life for their citizens. These bans are put in place for a number of obvious reasons, one of them being to protect children from the advertising of junk foods. This is because children are particularly impressionable and are therefore very susceptible advertisements. This can be dangerous when children are being exposed to advertisements of products that are unhealthy. The Obesity Task force in London states that several billion pounds that are spent each year advertising food or soft drinks are at least partly to blame for increasing levels of obesity in many countries

There are many international organizations as well as governments that are working to put these bans and regulations in place to make a difference in the health of people around the world in regards to eating habits. The chairman of the London-based International Obesity Task Force, Professor Philip James, said: "It is vital that, as well as governments, food industry leaders support the new standards we propose.” The World Health Organization is trying to pass a code that will control the advertising of food to children. This code will outlaw the use of popular cartoon characters to sell foods that are high in fat, sodium, and sugar on both television and the internet. Codes will also prevent celebrities from being used to promote unhealthy foods. Some countries around the world have gone as far as a total ban of certain forms of advertising as opposed to passing restrictions and regulations. In Norway and Sweden, any advertisement targeted at children age 12 and under is banned completely.

Obesity is a problem that is affecting many countries throughout the world. The fact that advertising and marketing of unhealthy foods across the globe has had an affect on the rising cases of obesity is shocking.

Cigarette advertising is another major issue facing the international marketing community. The World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is designed to make it easier for national governments to implement tobacco controls, including a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship. Organizations like the WHO are working extremely hard in place regulations bans on the advertising of tobacco products. Bans such as the ones the WHO is passing, could prevent millions of people from starting smoking because they will not be influenced by tobacco marketing. It is important that strides are being taken to regulate unethical marketing practices as well as the marketing of unhealthy products.

Around the world advertising is pushing to clean up the advertising and marketing industry in terms of banning harmful advertisements as well as using the industry to better society. The IAA(International Advertising Association) is now supporting the production of the "One Minute of Responsibility" program. This has been organized by ACT Responsible, and features spots for non-commercial, social and environmental causes. The program is currently being broadcasted daily on Euro News. According to Joseph Ghossoub, Chairman and World President IAA, "Since inception, the IAA has cared about promoting social responsibility." With that being said, it makes sense that the IAA would support an organization like ACT Responsible. It is good to see the International Advertising Association using their vast resources to produce public service announcements in Europe to benefit global causes and efforts.

Another topic I feel I learned quite a lot about was marketing campaigns for cities. In my blog I wrote about Berlin and South Africa and how they that are trying to rebrand themselves in an effort to increase tourism and general awareness of what they have to offer. Both places are trying to overcome hardships and try and reposition themselves in the mind of people throughout the world. Berlin is still trying to overcome a stigma from the holocaust as well as an image of strictness and seriousness. South Africa is a rather impoverished country and is trying to use this marketing campaign to help the countries financial situation. It is fascinating to see how in these cases the countries or cities are almost looked at as products or brands in regards to developing a marketing campaign.

Aside from themes such as these, a lot of my blogging was spent on reporting news on international marketing. There a lot of international marketing conferences, events, and awards. Using my blog to report on these events was fun because the events were very current and made me feel like this blog had a purpose. Letting viewers see what is happening in the world of international marketing.

After learning at the international marketing arena from this blog I feel like it will benefit me as I begin my career in the industry. I will potentially start working at an advertising agency or working for a company that marketing internationally and it will be a good asset to know what is happening in the international marketplace. Additionally, before this class I never really used blogs and now I see how they can be an asset to any business. For example a company could use blogs to update consumers about what is happening within the company. Obviously, the sky is the limit with blogs and anything one could think of could be used for blogging. This assignment made me feel proficient with blogging and I now feel like I have another skill that can be applied to my career, whatever that turns out to be.

Glocalization

According to an article in zeenews.com, a new Coke advertisement in India featured the Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan. Coca-Cola advertisements in India are classic examples of the current trend in the Indian branding and advertising industry - "think globally, act locally". People in the industry refer to this as "Glocalization." Global organizations are seeing a lot of success in India by using Indian celebrities and make the advertisement seem more local. The purpose of advertisements like these is to make a global organization seem more local and appeal to the Indian people. Glocalization is a result of globalization and how the local markets respond to it.

"I would say glocalisation really took off over the last five years. Most global brands now have local execution. At the end of the day, the needs and the wants of people are pretty similar. But if we use local idioms for a global brand, it makes sense to the local audience," Nirvik Singh, CEO, Southeast Asia, Grey Worldwide Advertising said. As a result, distinctions between the national, local and international advertising are blurring, especially in developing markets.

Russian Vodka Global Marketing

According to an article in the Brand Republic, Stolichnaya, the russian vodka has contacted London agencies to put together pitches for the business. The winning agency will be asked to create a campaign that will initially run in the US and the UK before it spreads internationally. The work on this new advertising campaign is supposed to prompt a change from the companies current advertising strategy, which is currently based around Soviet and Russian style themes. This new campaign will focus on more contemporary communications, which will help it compete with some of the other vodka brands such as Skyy and Absolut that have a more modern approach to their marketing strategies.

Through this campaign the company is looking to extend its consumer base into new markets by going after different target markets. This will be accomplished with the more modern approach to their marketing strategy. They also aim to increase customer loyalty among users who already drink Stolichnaya. Last year, SPI doubled its digital marketing budget to £1.5 million, so that coupled with this new global marketing campaign should have a significant effect on the companies performance.

Is Advertising Working?

According to an article in the Business Spectator only 50 percent of advertising is effective, and no one knows which half. This is leading people to question whether or not advertising is even worth it. The London based marketing group has done market research on the topic. Two surveys of 3,000 global marketers in January and March, found that the effectiveness of marketing has fallen to an all-time low and that increasingly sophisticated consumers turn off advertising.

75 per cent of marketers in the UK told Fournaise that they didn’t know if they could trust the visitor and traffic profiles claimed by online media owners and publishers. Thats unfortunate that owners of websites are not being honest with advertisers. The global marketing firm Synovate recently launched a market tracking tool in Asia designed to enable marketers to analyse the barriers they face to getting their products to market effectively. Scott Lee of Synovate said, "One of the things we have been doing is to work out the impact that physical market barriers are having on distribution, visibility, pricing availability and other issues,” He also added that he has, "seen cases where we have pre-tested advertisements and they looked great, but they had a questionable impact because of marketing barriers, particularly physical barriers and particularly on smaller brands.”

Everybody is trying to figure out how to deal with the Internet, and most recently the new genre of viral marketing, which used to be called word-of-mouth. Before information was passed on from one person to another somewhat slowly. Now with social networking tools like facebook and youtube, information about products, companies, and virtually anything can be passed on to millions of people instantly.

With all these problems and uncertainties in the marketing world, marketers are now moving to less traditional media for their marketing and advertising efforts. These media include various social networking websites.

Banning the Sexualization of Children

According to an article in the Herald Sun in Australia, the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) announced changes to the Advertising to Children Code. After these changes go into affect, advertisements for kids' products must not include sexual imagery or imply that children are even sexual beings. Additionally, ads must not state or imply that owning a product will enhance a child's sexuality. This part of the codes kind of boggled my mind because i have never heard of a product that implied that it enhanced a child's sexuality. That just seems extremely messed up. Although, if there are products that are trying to claim that they enhance sexuality among children, I am glad these codes are preventing them.

AANA Chair, Ian Alwill said that the changes would meet the expectations of the Australian community. These new codes are being put into affect because of a growing concern for premature sexualization of children in the main stream media.

These new codes for advertising in Australia are clearly a very important step to protect children from inappropriate advertising and marketing. One thing that comes to mind is the media's effects on body image among younger teenage girls. Eating disorders have become a huge problem throughout the world among girls this age and many people point fingers at the media for creating a need to be thin.

OMD Worldwide Is The Best

OMD Worldwide, the global media communications agency, was named the most awarded media agency in the world for the fourth year in a row by the just released 2007 Gunn Report for Media. Gunn evaluates global media creativity, ranks the most-awarded campaigns agencies and advertisers in media competitions across the world. The Report rates agencies on a point system based on awards won in annual award competitions worldwide and also recognizes the role that innovative, creative and effective media have in building brand engagement and demand with consumers. Since the report began in 2004, OMD Worldwide has maintain its position at number one.

Smoking in Russia

The Russian News and Information Agency recently wrote an article about Russia's house of parliament that recently ratified on a global convention against smoking, which the World Health Organization (WHO) says kills 5 million people across the world annually.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is designed to make it easier for national governments to implement tobacco controls, including a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship. Such steps on banning advertising could prevent millions of people from picking up the smoking habit. Which clearly is a good thing.

Under this new convention, tobacco advertising will be banned completely within five years from. In addition heath warnings should occupy at least 30% of cigarette packaging within three years.

In recent years, tobacco producers have shifted their focus on the developing world, where about 70% of tobacco is now consumed. It is good to see the World Health Organization working to fight tobacco companies and banning their advertising in Russia and throughout the world.

IAA World Congress 2008

Every two years the business leaders and executives in the international advertising and marketing community gather for the International Advertising Association's World Congress. This year the World Congress is set to take place in Washington D.C. on April 7th-9th 2008. The Congress will cover issues of technology, advertising effectiveness, and consumer habits. Things that are affecting everyone from clients, agencies, to research and PR firms. Basically, what is in store for the future of advertising, marketing and other communications industries.

The goal of the IAA World Congress is to inform professionals in the advertising and marketing world about the latest issues and breakthroughs in the industry. The mixed format of the three-day program will include exhibitions, Q&A sessions, panels, and keynote speeches and will provide a variety of ways for participants to access and digest the information being presented. The social and evening entertainment programs at the World Congress will provide opportunities for participants to network and make new contacts.

People attending the Congress should expect to hear the latest innovations and developments in mobile technology, research trends, digital creative solutions, media, segmentation, and integrated media. And on top of all that they should ecp meet new and interesting people in the communications industry.

Branding South Africa

South Africa has gone to great lengths to create a positive and united image for the country. In 2000, the International Marketing Council of South Africa was formed to do just that. It is intersting to think of a country as a brand, but the IMC of South Africa thinks of the country just like it would a product. They had a goal of creating a body that could cordinate and ensure that a standard and unified message was being portrayed to the world about South Africa. The IMC's main objective is the marketing of South Africa through the Brand South Africa campaign. Before this campaign, messages about the country were varied and coming from numerous sources of questionable reliability. That is what created a need for the council.

The council is focusing its efforts on Tourism, Trade and Investment. These three areas have tremendous potential for job creation in South Africa and by increasing employment they are attemping to put an end to poverty in the country. Delivering this unified image of South Africa through a clear, co-ordinated effort by the IMC will cost the country billions of Rands(SA Currency) in the form of brand building messaging reaching across the globe.

Credibility of Online Marketing

According to a press release on Business Wire, The Fournaise Marketing Group, one of the global leaders in tracking marketing effectiveness concluded that close to 70% of marketers who advertised online were unsure if they actually got what they paid for. Marketers seem to be having a trust issue with the reliability and the credibility of online advertising mediums.

Fournaise listed five of the top reasons that many marketers are having issues with online marketing and advertising. First, they don’t know if they actually get what they pay for. Second, marketers don’t know if they can trust the visitor or traffic profile that online media owners claim their sites have. Third, they have the feeling there is a lot of click fraud. Which means a single person or even an online bot is clicking banner ads thousands of times a day automatically. This is a particular problem with cost per click advertising methods. Fourth, marketers don’t know if their ads appear in the sites and/or sites’ sections where they should appear. And finally, they don’t trust the traffic and click-through reports digital media owners give them. This explains why marketers around the world are planning to take a skeptic approach and spend only a small percentage of their marketing budgets online in 2008.

All of these issues affect online advertiser’s view of online media and whether or not it is a reliable and trustworthy media to advertise in. The concerns are all very legitimate because it is very easy to commit fraud over the internet and it is becoming increasingly hard to find a websites that are trustworthy. Because of this skepticism in 2007, 40% of marketers around the world did not run online campaigns. Online media now has the immense challenge of winning the trust and confidence of marketers.

Be Berlin!!!

People and business leaders throughout Berlin and Germany see Berlin as trendy and full of life. However, abroad it's seen as proficient, orderly and serious. The Nazi regime, World War Two, and Communist East Germany all took their toll on Berlin. Because of these reasons, the city of Berlin and Germany as whole have gotten quite the bad reputation. This makes is hard to promote tourism and the city itself because people in many other countries want nothing to do with Germany.

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit unveiled the "Be Berlin" campaign which was based on the "I Love New York" and "I amSTERDAM" campaigns. This new international campaign to promote the city of Berlin will cost the city 11 million euros. Probably the most famous example of this sort of campaign is the "I Love New York" campaign of the late 1970s.

Berlin is Germany's top destination for tourists, attracting more than 8 million visitors and earning between 8 and 9 billion euros from tourism annually. Berlin wants this campaign to expand this business even further.

A few Berliners have complained that the campaign is in English, not German and have scoffed that the slogan sounds like a stutter. Some people living in Berlin are asking themselves, “What would it mean to be Berlin?”

Smart Cars in the U.S.

Smart Cars which is a maker of microcars, manufactured by Daimler Chrysler/Mercedes is coming to the United States and is releasing a creative anthology, “Sideways: A Smart Art Project”, as a way to highlight Smart’s goals of making urban transportation a bit greener. According to Inhabitat.com, the project combines the diverse work of 100 international contributors in collaboration with 11 leading international magazines. The eco-based art submissions have been brought from the fields of photography, illustration, graphic design, painting, sculpture, architecture, and fashion. By drawing from such a broad base of mediums and addressing such a real topic, the “Sideways” project is bound to generate a great amount of buzz and popularity.

The “Sideways” art project will be accompanied by an international marketing campaign that’s aim is to “underline Smart’s view that it is possible to act ecologically without remotely neglecting aesthetic design concerns.” Smart’s Head of Marketing and Sales, Anders Sundt Jensen, has stated that, “Sideways looks at the issue of ecology in a new creative context, and it should therefore generate some interesting new takes on the topic.”

With gas prices at an all time high and only getting higher it is good to see that eco-friendly companies such as Smart Car are entering the U.S. Market. We are seeing more and more drivers switching from big gas guzzling SUV’s to more economical compact cars and even hybrids as they get more and more accessible. Developing greener urban transportation for the future is one of the Smart brand’s primary goals. This new international marketing campaign as well as the “Sideways” project by Smart Cars is a very innovative and creative way to promote the Smart Car brand. The campaign will also help spread the word of greener transportation and ecological thinking in urban environments.

“Sideways” will be presented officially at its U.S. launch on March 19 in New York and will subsequently be available in bookshops.

Junk Food Advertising in the UK

According to an article by the BBC, the World Health Organization figures, to 177 million children worldwide are threatened by obesity-related diseases, and it is predicted that 2.3 billion people over 15 years old will be overweight by the year 2015.

The chairman of the London-based International Obesity Task Force, Professor Philip James, said: "It is vital that, as well as governments, food industry leaders support the new standards we propose.”

The codes that the International Obesity task force as well as many other consumer groups are calling for are attempting to ban on unhealthy food promotion in schools and an end to the use of celebrities and cartoon characters. The Obesity Task force states that several billion pounds that are spent each year advertising food or soft drinks are at least partly to blame. Children are extremely impressionable and all the advertising towards the children is having a profound effect on the amount of junk food children are consuming. This can be easily proved by the rising cases of childhood obesity in London and though out the world.

The new codes concentrate on foods high in fat, sugar and salt. In addition to a ban on advertising between 6am and 9pm, the codes asks for a complete end to internet and new media advertising including celebrities or cartoon characters, competitions or free gifts. As a kid I personally used to love these contests and free gifts. I remember ripping off box tops and sending them into the company to get a free cartoon watch or whatever it was that I simply needed to have a that moment. I suppose all of that is coming to an end now.

The UK television regulator Ofcom has already introduced a ban on marketing unhealthy foods in adverts during shows aimed at children that came into effect in January. These new codes are simply trying to strengthen the existing bans and further restrict these advertising practices.

Untraceable Controversy

IGN Entertainment released an article about an online marketing campaign promoting the release of new thriller Untraceable by Universal Pictures is causing controversy after being shut down by social network Facebook. Universal received a message from Facebook explaining that the page had been removed on the basis that “pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed”.

The film, directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Diane Lane, records the search for a serial killer who has created an “untraceable” website where he conducts violent and painful murders live on the net.

To promote the international release, Universal created a KILL WITH ME page on Facebook. The more fans the page received, the more of an extended torture sequence from the film was made available to view. This was accompanied by a Facebook-only banner campaign, warning visitors not to visit the page in question.

This video promoting the Untraceable included clips of a supposed site member being abducted, tortured and executed. Even though these clips were fake, a moderator on the thought the clips were real.

This controversy was all part of the plan. Neil Wirasinha, director of International Advertising Media at Universal Picture International, commented: “We were prepared for the possibility that Facebook would take this action, but we’re disappointed to lose the many fans the page was starting to attract. Hopefully, they will pick up the clues to the new destination.”

Currently there are other Facebook groups dedicated to the movie but none like the controversial page that was removed. While I am on Facebook, I never personally had the pleasure of visiting the group before it was deleted from Facebook. I think is interesting and clever that Universal would put out videos like this online, basically with the intention of having them removed. Because of all this fuss with being removed from the Facebook page, Universal got a lot more media coverage and exposure for the Untraceable movie. Good work on Universals part I suppose.

New York Festivals Advertising Awards

New York Festivals was the first to create an international competition recognizing the importance and marketing value of innovative media. The 2008 International Innovative Advertising Awards are being judged online by panels of industry experts from around the world. Judging criteria includes: ability of the entry to communicate its message, idea or appeal; design; structure and ease of navigation; interactivity and functionality; originality of the creative/communicative approach; creative concept; marketing impact; and overall user experience.

Categories for the awards in the product and services group include apparel, automotive, alcoholic beverages, non-alcoholic beverages, foods, medical/pharmaceutical, entertainment promotion, toys, travel/tourism, and many more. Some of the other categories in this competition include: Advergames and Viral Advertising, Online Advertising, including integrated campaigns that include online elements. There is also a wide selection of categories for Guerrilla Marketing and Alternative Media, such as ambient, event and mobile marketing, blogs, short message systems, and street teams. Lastly, there is a category for CD-ROM advertising.

New York Festivals Innovative Advertising Awards were first established in 1992. In 2007 the Grand Award Winner was IKEA Sweden with an interactive website featuring 5 different walk-in closets where users can control a character to look at different IKEA products in each closet.

Banning Junk Food Ads in Australia

On October 30, 2007, The Sydney Morning Herald, put out an article regarding a new World Health Organization code that will control the advertising of food to children. This code will outlaw the use of popular cartoon characters to sell foods that are high in fat, sodium, and sugar on both television and the internet.

Obesity has been spreading like an epidemic around many parts of the world, and it is now just as prevalent in children in as it is in adults.

This proposal is very similar to the advertising standards of Finland and Germany where advertising to children with the use of cartoon characters is prohibited. In Norway and Sweden, any advertisement targeted at children age 12 and under is banned completely. Currently, there are no such restrictions in Australia, where Children’s Television Standards have not been changed for 17 years.

It is good to see Australia try to help end the growing problem of obesity throughout their country. Children are very impressionable and it is simply unfair to target them with advertisements for unhealthy products, because they are bound to be very effective. The United States has seen are particularly drastic increase in the number of obese children. It would be nice to see some advertising restrictions be put in placed in the U.S. to protect children from being targeted by marketers.

Social Responsibility

According to an article on albawaba.com, a middle east news source, the IAA(International Advertising Association) is now supporting the production of the "One Minute of Responsibility" program. This has been organized by ACT Responsible , and features spots for non-commercial, social and environmental causes. The program is currently being broadcasted daily on Euro News.

The Jordan Chapter of the IAA hosted the ACT Responsible exhibition during the 2nd International Advertising and Marketing Communications Conference held in 2006. The conference had a huge turn out where Jordanian professionals and practitioners were able to look at some of the best creative work that has been done for non-commercial causes.

Herve de Clerck, ACT Initiator and IAA Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility said: “Our goal is to federate, inspire and promote great work in advertising and communication, in favour of social responsibility and sustainable development, and to show how advertising plays a significant role in raising awareness in today’s crucial world issues”.

According to Joseph Ghossoub, Chairman and World President IAA, "Since inception, the IAA has cared about promoting social responsibility." With that being said, it makes sense that the IAA would support an organization like ACT Responsible. It is very important that organizations like ACT exist so that PSA's can be broadcasted to help social and environmental causes that actually make a difference. Additionally the fact that there is real effort being put into these various PSA's is a good thing. It also shows that the advertising and marketing industry is willing to put forth the effort to help these global causes.

Education Conference in Milan

On November 16^th 2007 the IAA held the European Education Conference in Milan. The conference was in collaboration with The Catholic University of Sacred Heart in Milan. It was held with the goal of verifying whether or not the courses offered by Universities in Europe were adequate in meeting the needs and requirements of the current business communications market throughout the world. Both members of the academic community and top industry leaders attended this conference too see how the education system is preparing students for work and suggest ways to improve educations current state. After stating the fact that the goal of education in the field of business communication will be to train students to become professionals in total business communication, the conference was split up into two parts. First, “Communication and Employment: which roles and competences for communicators in the companies?” Second was “Changing Environment & New Professional Skills in the Market for Communication Services.” The conference closed with a presentation on education models that were suggested.

This article makes me think about how I am being prepared for the business and marketing world at Ithaca College. Whether or not my education here is teaching me enough of what I need to know about business and marketing communications to begin a successful career in the field. I will be working at an advertising/marketing firm this summer so I suppose after working there I will be able to get an idea of whether or not I have been trained properly to perform in he marketing communications world. I am not sure if this is happening here; but I hope that similar conferences to this one are being held in the United States to see if our education system is meeting the needs of the business communications market in the U.S. and abroad.

-Alec G.

A Super Bowl in London?

Well, as you know yesterday was the Superbowl and I just recently stumbled upon a very interesting article on foxbusiness.com. Apparently there is talk of hosting a Super Bowl across the pond in London, England. Football has been gaining popularity over in Europe and the NFL has played a number of games overseas with a great deal of success. According to the article sports marketing experts are not quite sure if the most watched and expensive sporting event in America would be a money maker for the NFL if it was played overseas.

For me, when I hear about the Super Bowl, I immediately think about the commercials. This year it cost companies 2.6 million for a 30 second spot! Having the game over in Europe makes me wonder about how it might affect the advertising in the Super Bowl. Will we be watching some European commercials here in the United States, or will it be the same as any other Super Bowl?

Some people believe putting this event in Europe could bring new fans “out of the woodwork” and potentially lead to more money for the league. People have also been comparing this to when FIFA sent its premier event, the World Cup to the United States in 1994. It was a huge success over here and eventually lead to the start of the MLS (Major League Soccer.) I’m not quite sure if having the Super Bowl in London would have that same effect as the World Cup in the U.S. but I think it would be interesting to see how successful it could be over there.

-Alec

Welcome!

This is my blog on International Marketing for my Audience Research class at Ithaca College. In this blog i will address issues relating to international marketing around the world both past and present.