How consumer meterogeneity muddles the international advertising debate

Scott Koslow and Carolyn Costley

Standardisation versus localisation is an enduring topic in international advertising. The generalisability of research on the topic is another issue.

How Consumer Heterogeneity Muddles the International Advertising Debate

Scott Koslow and Carolyn Costley

University of Waikato

Introduction

A fundamental question for international advertising research is whether national culture affects how consumers respond to advertising (Taylor 2005). If culture does, a local strategy is possibly better than a global strategy. If not, global or standardised advertising may be possible. Alas, inconsistencies have emerged from cross-national advertising research.

Some research finds country-specific differences in production; different countries have different advertisements. For example, UK advertisements tend to be product focused (Katz & Lee 1992; Whitelock & Rey 1998), US advertisements are...

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