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This research examines global advertising strategies and tactics in a global media brand for a shared audience across seven countries (Brazil, China, France, India, South Korea, Thailand, and USA).

A content analysis of advertisements in local editions of Cosmopolitan magazine compares the extent of standardization in execution elements (advertising copy, models) across product nationality (multinational, domestic) and category (beauty, other).

Local editions deliver more multinational than domestic product ads across all countries, except India. Overall, multinational product ads tend to use standardized strategies and tactics more than domestic product ads, although this propensity varies across countries. Beauty products (cosmetics, fashion) are more likely to use standardized approaches than are other products (e.g. cars, food, household goods).

The research only examines one type of magazine and for one type of audience.

A global medium such as Cosmopolitan offers international advertisers an opportunity to reach a shared consumer segment of women with varying degrees of standardization, and that even in Asian countries, some standardization is possible.

This is the first multi‐country study to examine advertising executions for global advertising strategy within a transnational media brand. Unlike previous studies that advise against global strategy in Asia, we find that contemporary advertisers are practicing some global advertising strategies, but to varying degrees.

The purpose of this research is to study creative strategy and execution as opposed to all elements of marketing and advertising standardization. It explores the standardization model (e.g. global, glocal, local, and single case strategy) by examining the international advertising strategies that multinational corporations (MNCs) from North America, Europe, and Asia used in their advertising campaigns targeting two culturally different markets: the United States and China.

A content analysis of 210 print advertisements compares the extent of standardization in creative strategy and execution across product country of origin (Japan, Korea, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States). Western versus non‐Western cultural cues are also coded and examined.

Overall, MNCs are more likely to adopt the glocal strategy than any other strategies in their international campaigns. Specifically, EU‐based MNCs tend to pursue the global strategy, whereas the North America‐based MNCs seem to favor the glocal strategy and Asia‐based MNCs tend to use local strategy. Western and non‐Western cultural values are found to manifest in the American and Chinese ads similarly, indicating a trend of increasing similarity in international advertising in face of global consumer culture.

The results of this content analysis provide a fuller picture in understanding the long‐standing issues of standardization in international advertising because of an approach to analyze creative strategy separately from execution. However, content analysis is inherently limited in inferring causality between observed patterns and mechanisms/variables that account for the patterns. Also, the time frame for sample selection, which is set as a year prior to the 2008 global financial crisis, is another limitation of the study.

There is an ongoing trend of using “one‐creative, multiple‐execution” strategy in international advertising. MNCs may distinguish advertising creative strategy from execution when developing their international advertising campaigns.

First, this study addresses the issue with a clear conceptual definition of standardization and differentiates the strategic and tactic standardization. Second, this is the first attempt to explore the standardization model using a sample of 51 multinational brands from North America, Europe, and Asia. The authors find that MNCs are practicing some standardization advertising strategy, but to varying degrees. Third, this study identifies and empirically tests two external factors – culture and convergence of external markets – that influence standardization.

To discover whether there are market segments for the fashion industry that cut across countries and respond differently to advertising messages.

A survey was administered to Korean, European, and US female consumers. Cluster analysis is used in an attempt to identify lifestyle segments that cut across cultures.

Four cross‐national market segments are identified. These segments can be labeled as follows: “information seekers,” “sensation seekers,” “utilitarian consumers,” and “conspicuous consumers.” Findings also reveal that fashion lifestyle segment had a stronger effect on the reaction to a set of three ads for a major global fashion company (one each from the French, Korean, and US editions of Vogue magazine) than did consumer nationality.

Findings suggest that it is viable and perhaps desirable for global marketers in the fashion industry to target cross‐national market segments as opposed to developing individual segmentation schemes for each country.

Relatively few studies examining the viability of cross‐national segmentation have been studies. The study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests standardized advertising is appropriate for some fashion marketers.

Because the web can be an influential medium for attracting and retaining customers, it is critical to examine the connection between web advertising and corporate strategy. This is particularly true for multinational organizations, which face the most complex organizational environment. The purpose of this paper is to propose that multinational organizations should be concerned with alignment of their strategy and web image because of the size and geographic spread of their operations.

This research paper reviews the fundamental global strategies that corporations can pursue (e.g. integration, transnational, national responsiveness) and then empirically examine the relationship between corporate global strategy and web advertising strategy for 20 multinational organizations.

The results show that misalignment between corporate global strategy and web advertising strategy is reasonably common. For two thirds of the companies in our sample, there was imperfect alignment.

The paper suggests three reasons why this can be, and offer a tool that enables organizations to recognize how they should handle design and content matters for the combination of corporate and national web sites.

This paper reviews and critiques the standardization debate in international advertising strategy. First, the paper identifies the standardization, adaptation and compromise schools of advertising including their advantages and disadvantages and then presents some of the contingency models with special focus on variables related to products, customer segments and organization. Then, a number of deficiencies in the academic literature as a whole are presented. The conclusion is that the preferred school of advertising is the compromise school, but that the continuum perspective is of little use to practitioners as they want to know what variables determine the position on the standardization continuum in their sector and whether the level of standardization is increasing or decreasing.

This paper presents the results of a cross‐cultural analysis of television advertising in the Czech Republic and the UK. The need for this research is suggested by a gap in the literature concerning cross‐cultural studies involving Eastern European countries. The aim is to compare advertising in the two countries in order to add to the debate on the feasibility of standardised advertising across cultural borders. The literature relating specifically to cross‐cultural studies of advertising in two or more countries provides the basis for this research study. A sample of television advertisements was collected from the two most viewed UK and Czech commercial channels and was examined using content analysis. The focus of the research is on differences and similarities in the creative strategies and executional formats used in the product categories advertised. In terms of creative strategies, there was great similarity overall. However, significant differences were found for six out of the 14 individual product categories studied. In contrast, many significant differences were found overall for executional formats. The partial nature of the support for the view that creative strategy is associated more with product category than with culture reflects a complex situation vis‐à‐vis international advertising standardisation.

The significant body of published work in global advertising literature focuses on the standardization and localization of the advertising campaign from a marketing strategy perspective without much concern regarding consumers’ response. In this research, this gap is addressed by gauging consumer perceptions of localized and standardized advertisements in Hong Kong. Consumers generally prefer locally produced to foreign‐sourced commercials, irrespective of brand origin; and they exhibit more favorable attitudes toward foreign‐sourced, standardized commercials in situations involving greater brand familiarity and when execution style is transformational. Therefore, well‐known brands with transformational appeals are more likely to succeed when transferred to Hong Kong, while localized advertising messages will be more effective when brand familiarity is low.

Since the global versus multinational marketing debate began some twenty‐five years ago, pros and cons of each approach have been well recognized. This article provides an overview of the various methods by which global companies are achieving worldwide marketing success. Emerging positioning strategies are illustrated against a background discussion on establishing a world brand, segmenting global markets on the basis of consumer similarities and product benefits, and the recognition of universal themes. The basis for this research was to look at what is being done in the global marketing and advertising arena via print advertising from Japan, Europe, and the Middle East. Examples of ads are provided to illustrate various universal themes and positioning strategies in both the high‐tech and high‐touch product categories.

The goal of this paper is to present the difference‐in‐differences approach as statistical methodology specifically to address the importance of identifying culture‐specific advertising strategies when targeting global market segments. In applying this methodology to advertising research, the study analyses German and Japanese magazine advertising targeting women in four dimensions: advertisement format, usage of models, male and female role portrayal and value appeals. Despite some apparent transnational similarities in advertising aimed at women, the difference‐in‐differences analysis reveals marked cross‐cultural differences in the way that marketers adapt their strategies in the women’s market. The results indicate that non‐traditional approaches in targeting women seem to be far more culturally specific than the traditional ones, and that the male role portrayal, which has not yet gained much attention in research, is the crucial element of non‐traditional approaches in the Japanese women’s magazine.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Marketing Intelligence & Planning is split into seven sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Marketing Strategy; Customer Service; Sales Management; Promotion; Marketing Research/Customer Behaviour; Product Management; Logistics and Distribution and Sundry.