Global Market and Commercials: Understanding Cultural Diversities

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in the consequences of culture for global marketing and advertising. Indeed, culture determines how people communicate, what people communicate and in which way national cultures affect customers’ behaviours and perceptions. Many studies underline the necessity of adapting advertising strategies to the consumers’ culture. Understanding the consequences of cultural differences is, therefore, crucial for marketing and advertising decision-makers when companies have to develop international advertising campaigns. Therefore, the main purpose of our research is to investigate the approach of a multinational company towards cultural differences in international advertising. With this objective in mind, we analyse through a qualitative content analysis the commercials of a well-known soft drink company in five countries in order to understand cultural differences and how they are reflected in the advertising campaigns according to the Hofstede’s model. Our findings show that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are considered to be supportive and useful guidelines for the development of suitable commercials for culturally different target groups.