Advertising standardization between American and Mexican women's magazines : a content analysis study

For companies to be competitive in the global marketplace, it is crucial that they develop effective international advertising programs. Much of the research in this area centers around whether the economies of scale support the use of a standardized (globalized) international advertising approach; or, due to fundamental differences in culture, values and customs, whether it is more effective to adopt a nonstandardized (regionalized) strategy. As a starting point for gaining knowledge in this area, it is useful to assess the levels of standardization, or nonstandardization, being used in practice by international advertisers, which is the primary focus of this study. Replicating the methodology of a content analysis study by Whitelock and Chung (1989), advertisements were compared from the 1989 issues of two American magazines, Goodhousekeeping and Vogue, with advertisements for the same products in the 1989 issues of Buenhogar, the Mexican version of Good housekeeping. The advertisements were compared based on the characteristics of picture, size, color, layout, headline, and copy. From the analysis of these factors, each pair of ads was assessed a degree of standardization score ranging from 0 to 10, with a 0 representing a case of total nonstandardization and 10 representing a case of total standardization, i.e., no differences in the ads The results of the analysis of the 24 unduplicated pairs of ads found that 58% had standardization scores of zero, or cases of total nonstandardization; 12.5%, with scores ranging from 4-5.5, were considered to be somewhat standardized; 17% of the pairs had scores of 6 and were considered to be standardized; and 12.5%, with scores ranging from 6.5-8 were considered to be highly standardized. No cases of total standardization, a score of 10, were discovered In this analysis. Another interesting finding of this study was that advertisements for products In the Perfume/Cologne, Make-up, and Face Cream/Lotion categories tended to be more highly standardized than ads for products In the Home Appliance Clothing, and Other categories.