Prof: Leonardo Mendoza
I. Advertising can be thought of as a vehicle for transmitting culture.
A. Advertising helps institute and shape patterns of modern consumption in foreign countries.
B. Adevertising also conveys broader cultural values and attitudes.
II. The rise of global advertising.
A. The appearance of a domestic advertising industry is one of the signs that indicates that a country is becoming integrated into the global market.
1. Part of the institutional framework of transnational capitalism includes:
a. production facilities oriented toward commodity production.
b. transportation infrastructure
c. communications infrastructure
c. stable and amiable governmental institutions
2. The appearance of a domestic advertising industry in a society is a good that a society is being transformed in substantial ways.
a. this process is sometimes referred to as "Commercial Westernization."
b. some people argue that this transformation of cultures is the continuation of imperialism but through cultural rather than military means.
3. Cultural imperialism.
a. This refers to the domination of one group over another by means of cultural institutions rather than force.
b. It is way of maintaining order and control after the era of direct colonial rule.
c. Western powers withdraw their armies, but their institutions remain: schools, media, industry, etc.
d. these institutions are considered a means of instituting cultural homogenization.
1) "McDonaldization"
2) "Coca-colonization"
Berger (From "Is Thailand Going Western?", p. 229):
Coca-Colonization, another term for cultural imperialism, is the result of the spread of American popular culture, and is connected to our mass media... When you see fast food restaurants such as McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken in Bangkok, you see evidence that American popular culture (in the form of fast food joints) has taken root in Thailand.
The argument is that our media and popular culture reflect (subliminally, so to speak) bourgeois values, in general, and capitalist ideology, in particular. Thus when Third World peoples watch our films and television programs and read our comics, they are (without recognizing it) being colonized on the cultural level.
III. The development and control of global advertising.
A. As an industry advertising diffused from the West, especially the United States, to the rest of the world.
B. Western firms continue to dominate foreign advertising markets.
C. Three stage history of global advertising;
1. 1900 - 1950s:
a. American agencies opened foreign offices to serve specific clients in foreign markets (typically Europe).
1) J. Walter Thompson first in 1899, but closed in 1916 for lack of business.
b. Fairly rudimentary attempts to expand markets.
2. 1960 - 70s:
a. American companies begin to establish foreign offices in much more coordinated manner.
b. these take three forms
1) branch offices: a local firm is a wholly owned subsidiary of the foreign parent agency.
2) affiliates: a foreign parent agency has part ownership of a local firm.
3) associate firms: the foreign agency has a working arrangement with a local agency.
c. between1960-70, "foreign advertising" ceased to mean only having a branch office in Europe
1) Emergence of the global market.
2) And truly global advertising
3. 1980s - present
a. Advertising and marketing strategies begin to change to take into account global markets.
IV. The philosophy of global advertising.
A. The rise of the "global corporation" (Theodore Levitt)
1. rather than "multinational corporations"
2. Levitt argues that firms now supersede national boundaries.
B. Such firms should pursue a global approach to their marketing efforts.
1. Different from multiple marketing efforts sensitive to distinct national boundaries.
2. marketing efforts are directed toward global market segments that are geographically dispersed yet homogenous: the global teenager.
a. the goal of global marketing is to standardize offerings.
1) the marketing of "world brands"
2) examples of world brands?
C. Contemporary global advertising is characterized by
1. centralization of planning.
2. messages are targeted at specific segments but in a consistent manner.
3. an "international style" of presentation.
a. focus on visual imagery
b. linked to media systems that circumvent national boundaries.
V. Global advertising as a purveyor of Western values.
A. A couple of culturally specific categories of advertising:
1. Goods
a. representation of native goods in commodified contexts.
b. presentation of foreign goods in native contexts.
c. presentation of exotic commodities in Western contexts.
2. The self:
a. distribution of Western beauty ideals to foreign contexts
b. conventional portrayals of social relations
1) gender
2) family
c. categories of looks & manner
B. In the same way that US media segment audiences, foreign advertisers segment entire populations into important and unimportant groups.
1. Klein on MTV and the global teenager.
VI. The ideology of globalization in advertising.
A. Ads that feature foreign countries often present the commodity as the basis for orderly interaction between people.
B. Market Masala: ads often portray a weak form of multi-culturalism, in which peoples differences are overcome by use of the product.
C. Sometimes the product is also presented as something that protects one from foreign dangers.