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I think I’ve been too consumed on the Human Rights issue and kind of got side tracked from my original topic of cross-cultural advertising and global standard advertising. Better shift my focus back!

From the book:

Marieke de Mooij, 2004, Consumer Behaviour and Culture: Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising, Illustrated, Sage Publication, United States of America

The Origin:

Since the term global-advertising was invented, many advertisers tend to generalize their consumers regardless of their cultural backgrounds, mainly because it’s more cost effective to do so. So probably the first question that needs to be answer here would be ‘how did this phenomenon happen in the first place?’

Globalization and the birth of new media (internet) are thought to be the two main causes for this standardization of consumers and consumer behaviors. Globalization often refers to the implementation and the spread of western culture, value and technology across different countries which led to the assumption of the existence of global consumer culture. The term globalization is often associated with convergence theory; that nations are becoming more and more alike in spite of their different cultural, ethical economic and political systems. However, what people tend to forget is that, with convergence comes divergence. Just because people are using the same technology, does not mean they all would use it the same way. In addition to this, internet now allows people to access information from different countries even without having to be there physically which means people are able to learn about cultures, values and beliefs that are different to what they grew up with. One expectation of internet was that it would standardize people’s value. Internet indeed helped enhance the existence of different cultures and values but it does not necessary means that internet would change people’s value, belief or their behaviour. The best example for this would be the Bandai i-service in Japan. Comic books have always been very popular among Japanese. When NTT DoCoMo came out with new mobile internet service, Bandai offered consumers with service where they can download comic books. This service soon became one of the most popular services among subscribers. This example illustrates how mobile internet (new media) did not change consumer behaviour or their preferences.