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...