本科毕业论文---文化和市场的融合对跨国企业的市场营销策略的影响.doc

山东建筑大学毕业论文外文文献及译文

本科毕业论文
外文文献及译文

文献、资料题目：Influences of culture and market convergence on the international advertising strategies of multinational corporations in North America, Europe and Asia
文献、资料来源：网络
文献、资料发表（出版）日期：2012.6
院 （部）： 商学院
专 业： 市场营销
班 级： 营销111
姓 名： 李小乐
学 号： 2011091422
指导教师： 高桂平
翻译日期： 2015.6.10

外文文献
Influences of culture and market convergence on the international advertising strategies of multinational corporations in North America, Europe and Asia
Purpose – 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.
Design/methodology/approach – 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.
Findings – 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.
Research limitations/implications – 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.
Practical implications – 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.
Originality/value – 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.
Key Words :Advertising standardization；Global consumer culture positioning； Global marketing strategy；Multinational companies

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1. Introduction
How to standardize advertising messages has been a challenge to multinational corporations (MNCs) in the era of globalization. As a means of establishing a uniform global strategy and image (Samiee et al., 2003), marketing managers of MNCs employ a standardized advertising strategy designed to maximize the firm’s profit potential ( Jain, 1989) and enhance its performance outcomes (Schilke et al., 2009). The renewed interest in the decades-old standardization debate among academics and professionals has moved beyond the question of whether to standardize international advertising or adapt international advertising to foreign markets. Current concern centers on how to use standardization and localization approaches effectively in the face of contingency factors such as cultural environments, customer profiles, market diversity, product types, organizational determinants, and campaign-related factors (Gabrielsson et al., 2008; Taylor, 2005; Vrontis et al., 2009).
Unfortunately, research on the long-standing debate about the merits of standardization in international advertising has not come to substantial conclusion on generalizable findings (Harris and Attour, 2003; Melewar and Vemmervik, 2004; Okazaki and Mueller, 2008; Vrontis et al., 2009). Critics point out that a number of deficiencies in the research literature made advertising standardization fuzzy and complex to understand (Melewar and Vemmervik, 2004). According to them, the fundamental flaw is that the concept of standardization is loosely defined; no consistent or coherent model has been developed to guide practitioners (Duncan and Ramaprasad, 1995; Okazaki and Mueller, 2008; Taylor, 2005; Taylor and Okazaki, 2006; Zou and Volz, 2010). Not surprisingly, empirical support for propositions of standardization is inconsistent, if not conflicting (Okazaki et al., 2006; Samiee et al., 2003).
To address the conceptual ambiguity, Wei and Jiang (2005) proposed a standardization model to deepen the understanding of MNCs’ international advertising strategy from a perspective of how the level of standardization in creative strategy relates to the level of standardization in execution. The model highlights a dynamic relationship between creative strategy and execution in standardizing international advertising campaigns. However, they empirically tested the model using only advertisements of a single brand (Nokia) sampled from the USA and China. In addition, the model did not incorporate environmental factors (e.g. cultural values and market homogeneity) that impact MNCs’ advertising strategy.
Motivated by the global cultural positioning theory, this study aims to examine the advertising strategies of MNCs selected from North America, Europe, and Asia, which advertise in two culturally different markets – the USA and China. In doing so, the role of environmental factors in influencing the international advertising of those MNCs is explored. The study is a timely response to Taylor’s (2005) call for new approach to research the standardization issue in international advertising. He argued that: […] international advertising research is poised to advance to a new level. While international advertising has seen debate on the standardization versus local adaptation issue, dating back even well before Levitt’s (1983) article sparked controversy (e.g. Elinder, 1965; Fatt, 1967), it is now clear that the focus needs to move beyond which general approach is more desirable to look instead at the factors that allow for successful standardization of advertising. There is a need for research that empirically tests whether various factors that have been proposed will impact the ability to effectively standardize advertising. A model of when standardization is feasible and how it works would represent a major advance in the literature (p. 11).
2. Conceptual framework and hypotheses
2.1 Conceptualization of advertising standardization
The deficiencies in the existing frameworks of standardization in international advertising resulted in failure to illuminate the issue (Melewar and Vemmervik, 2004; Wei and Jiang, 2005). Past research in the standardization issue has been diverse in theoretical perspectives, including contingency theory (Melewar and Vemmervik, 2004) global marketing strategy (GMS) theory (Okazaki et al., 2007; Taylor and Okazaki, 2006; Zou and Volz, 2010), global consumer culture theory (GCCT) (Akaka and Alden, 2010; Alden et al., 1999; Okazaki et al., 2010), and resource-advantage theory (Griffith and Yalcinkaya, 2010). Research methods employed by scholars were also diverse, such as survey (Fam and Grohs, 2007; Kanso and Nelson, 2007) and content analyses (Nelson and Paek, 2007; Okazaki and Mueller, 2008). Nevertheless, several key aspects of the standardization issue remain unsolved (Fam and Grohs, 2007). A major limitation of the past research is that standardization in international advertising was conceptualized in a general sense; few studies explicated the concept fully by differentiating key aspects of an advertising message into distinctive dimensions such as creative strategy and execution. Conceptually and practically, creative strategy and the execution of an advertising campaign can be standardized uniformly or independently.
Creative strategy and execution jointly shape the content and presentation of an advertisement (Ramaprasad and Hasegawa, 1992). Creative strategy refers to a policy or guiding principle that specifies the general nature and character of messages to be designed (Frazer, 1983). Simply put, it concerns “what is said” in advertising (Mueller, 1996). On the other hand, execution refers to the selection of appeals, copy, and illustrations to execute the chosen creative strategy. It is about “how it’s said” in advertising (Mueller, 1996). Past research has indicated that MNCs tend to adopt varying degrees of standardization in creative strategy vis-a` -vis execution. For example, Eger (1987) found that the creative strategy of a MNC’s international advertising campaign tended to be standardized, while the execution formats were usually localized, adapting to the unique environment of different foreign markets.
Based on the consideration that creative strategy and execution are intertwined but represent two different aspects of an advertising message, Duncan and Ramaprasad (1995) proposed that whether international advertising practices are standardized or localized depends largely upon how creative strategy differentiates from execution. Their theorization of the standardization issue in international advertising advances the literature with a fresh approach to address the deficiencies in the existing frameworks (Paek et al., 2002;Wei and Jiang, 2005). However, Duncan and Ramaprasad (1995) did not elaborate on the different configurations of creative strategy and execution to make their approach empirically testable.
Building on Duncan and Ramaprasad’s (1995) framework, Wei and Jiang (2005) developed a model with a typology of creative strategy and execution as two dimensions. In doing so, they were informed by the configurational theory of organizations (Meyer et al., 1993; Mintzberg, 1983), which conceived different combinations or “configurations” of strategic elements to make up the strategy spectrum (Lim et al., 2006).
Specifically, the model of configuration in standardization (see Figure 1) consists of four distinctive types of general strategy in international advertising: global strategy, glocal strategy, local/country-specific strategy, and single-case strategy. According to Wei and Jiang (2005), the global strategy is characterized as a highly standardized creative strategy coupled with highly standardized execution, by which advertising messages are used on a global scale with virtually no change in themes, positioning, illustrations, or copy – except for translation

Figure 1
where needed (such as use of local subtitles). The glocal strategy refers to a combination of a highly standardized creative strategy with highly adapted execution, by which the transfer of a centrally set creative strategy across borders with each market executing the strategy according to its environment. The local strategy is characterized as a highly adapted creative strategy accompanied with highly adapted execution, by which MNCs localize the creative concept, positioning, and actual production of the advertising message .according to the specific socio-cultural conditions of the market where they advertise. The single case strategy represents a combination of a highly adapted creative strategy with highly standardized execution.
Although Wei and Jiang’s (2005) standardization model provides a new perspective to examine the long-standing standardization issue in international advertising research, it may not be theoretically sophisticated enough to delimit the research focus to advertising itself. After all, advertising strategy hinges upon a business organization’s positioning strategy (Fill, 1999; Ries and Trout, 1986), which is the key element of modern marketing management (Hooley et al., 1998; Kotler, 2000). Therefore, the positioning literature is reviewed next to shed light on the international advertising strategy issue at the broad and strategic level.
GCCT is one of the newest and widely applied frameworks in understanding the new realities of globalized markets (Okazaki et al, 2010). Akaka and Alden (2010) defined global consumer culture (GCC) as “a collection of common signs and symbols, including brands that are understood by significant numbers of consumers in urban markets around the world” (p. 37). GCC theorists argue that a global culture of consumption is emerging as a result of the “increasing interconnectedness of varied local cultures as well as through development of cultures without a clear anchorage in any one territory” (Hannerz, 1990, p. 237).
Recognizing the emergence of GCC, Alden et al. (1999) proposed a series of brand positioning strategies across cultural borders; the strategies range along a continuum anchored by being global and being local, from global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) and foreign consumer culture positioning (FCCP) to local consumer culture positioning (LCCP). Specifically, GCCP refers to a strategy that “associates the brand with a widely understood and recognized set of symbols believed to constitute emerging global consumer culture” (Alden et al., 1999, p. 75). It resonates with increasingly global segments of consumers (Okazaki et al., 2010). On the other hand, FCCP refers to a strategy that “positions the brand as symbolic of a specific foreign consumer culture; that is, a brand whose personality, use occasion, and/or user group are associated with a foreign culture” (Alden et al., 1999, p. 78). Moreover, LCCP is defined as a strategy that “associates the brand with local cultural meanings, reflects the local culture’s norms and identities, is portrayed as consumed by local people in the national culture, and/or is depicted as locally produced for local people” (Alden et al., 1999, p. 78).
The above brand positioning strategies illuminate how MNCs market their products in coping with the growth of global markets. On the other hand, these strategies cannot be simply considered as conceptually equal to the standardization and localization strategies in international advertising. As