How to Develop International Advertising Campaigns that Work: The Example of the European Food and Beverage Sector

Abstract

This paper proposes an original approach to the debate concerning international advertising. It is based on a content analysis of 218 television commercials, in which the main elements in the development of an advertising strategy have been used to compare preselected ‘creative’ television commercials from France, Germany, Great Britain and the United States to television commercials that were broadcast across frontiers. The food and beverage sector has been chosen as a field of application because of its economic importance in Europe, as well as the very strong cultural influence of this sector. Not only has the content analysis enabled the identification of some guidelines for the execution of international advertising strategies, but it has also resulted in some conclusions for creative advertising. Finally, it has lead to the suggestion that international advertising is more orientated towards brand-building, whereas ‘creative’ advertising is more concerned with image-building.