The Final Post

Across the Universe: International Marketing was my blog that was centered around the concept of international marketing. I decided to choose advertisements and sites that were focused on the international market. A lot of the topics of my blogs dealt with the expanding of internet sites and American products to the international market.
One of my posts that exemplified the changes of American services was about McDonalds and their influence overseas. There are different names for their foods in different countries. There are even different items served depending on where you are in the world. Another aspect of McDonalds that is different, say in Europe, is the style that the stores are taking. They are becoming more of a hang out, rather than a dirty fast food joint. McDonalds in France are turning into more of a coffee shop atmosphere with wireless internet and modern furniture. Mothers with babies are going there to “hang out,” rather than just for a quick bite to eat, they are becoming the Starbucks of fast food.
Another one of the interesting highlights of international marketing is the aspect of creating sites such as Facebook and AOL to become internationally available. Facebook has recently embarked on a new campaign to promote their international version, known as their non-English version. Facebook wants to become a global phenomenon rather than just solely based in America. There is a good portion of users in London, about 2 million of the 64 million, however they want to expand to other European countries as well as just all over the world in general.
There have been a lot of developments concerning branching out to other countries. I know that especially in the facebook post and the McDonalds post I discussed this common theme, however it is also common in my post about web impressions over seas. This shows the desire to increase presence in other countries and how it is being done. I found that most of the concepts that were addressed and expanded to reach the international market and how they were advertised overseas was through the internet. Since the internet is such a globally spread medium it is an easy way to reach such a varied audience all over the world.
Another way that the internet was used overseas was for a dating site. I know that this does not sound at all strange but it is showing how marketing overseas is done very similarly to how we do it here. On this dating site there were ads for just the specific market in that area, India, since that is where the site was based.
One of the interesting things I came across was the difference in style of American commercials compared to the European commercials. European commercials are often more satirical and a little more wild than the American ads. They can get away with more in Europe, where here in American our guidelines are stricter. It has been known that European commercials try to attract customers through their innovative, sexier and more flexible approach to the advertisements created. In America it has been heard the advertising is decreasing and PR is increasing, however in Europe that is not the case. We might want to learn a lesson from this that we can be a little more flexible with our ads and maybe more obscure to attract the interest of customers rather than trying to be so strict and correct all the time.
I found this assignment to be beneficial to myself as well as the Blogosphere because I was able to research a topic, which in turn I would write a conversational yet informative entry about. I think that the fact that I chose international advertising to write about was just one more step in the direction of myself realizing how interested I am with the world of advertising and marketing as well as the international audience. I love to travel and when I do I always look at the ads around. I want to see how they differ and of course how they are similar to those that are common here in the US. By researching some corporations such as McDonalds and being able to find out how things are changed overseas sparked my interest in how other “All American” aspects would be portrayed internationally. It is definitely something that I will continue to look into.

Ciao!

European Commericals vs. American Commercials

This advertisement for a German Energy company called Epuron won an award at the Cannes International Advertising Awards. I find this commercial to be very silly, and similar in a way to other European ads. The commercials we see from other parts of the world are always a little bit more obscure, and therefore interesting. It has to be the rules and regulations that come with advertising. I know here in America there are many rules that must be followed when creating commercials, where in Europe they are not so strict and allow more ideas to slide.
European advertising has been known to try to attract customers through an innovative, opened, sexier and flexible approach to advertising. It has been said that advertising in the US is falling, and that PR is rising, however advertising in Europe is definitely still going strong. It is seen that European advertisers more commonly use the human body to draw interest, and where in America we might want to leave more to imagination, in Europe they do not do that and instead make the consumer focus on the product. Rather than making them think so much into an ad, Europeans show it all, leaving less to the imagination, therefore not distracting from the product.

COMMERCIAL


here is a blog that has a list of funny European commercials

Ad Impressions Around the World

15 billion ad impressions per month?! That is a lot, however it is just another day for Etology, the global leader in online advertising. This company is used to seeing 500 million ad impressions per day across Europe, with 300 collectively in Germany, the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands. Etology’s European ad publishers include many high traffic sites. Some of these include, Bebo, Freindster and hi5, all dealing with the craze of social networking. Many advertisers on these sites also include Skechers, Vonage, and TravelZoo. This platform of bringing online communities together has created more targeting for online marketing as well as created corporate growth in the past year.
According to Brock Purpura, Etology’s CEO, "Through international expansion and strong foreign revenue streams, Etology's business model promises continued growth, our globalization and international market growth is critical to maintain our position as a leader in the online advertising arena."
What appears to be a pro of Etology’s advertising boom, is that it is easy to use. “A simple navigation dashboard allows anyone, from experienced web publishers to amateur entrepreneurs, to place profitable ads on a website.” The flexible nature of ads and ways to purchase them enables targeted campaigns to develop. A comprehensive dashboard also provides advertisers with statistics and analytic ideas concerning ad placement. Etology's ad service can be used anywhere in the world, including more than 190 countries.

more info

hi 5!

Hi5 is the second largest social network in the world. There have recently been announcements of partnerships with Telecom in Portugal to enable more media in Portugal and the UK. The partnerships are made to combine an established local presence with a global audience. The plan is to offer advertisers more targets globally within the growing markets for Hi5.
According to Tiago Silva Lopes of Portugal Telecom, "hi5 has developed a strong global brand and loyal Portuguese audience. Our services can help extend hi5's visibility and value to advertisers in Portugal." The primary advertising platform of Hi5 is to allow advertisers to pinpoint their target audiences. The audiences of teens and twenties are the most coveted, and they represent the fastest growing demographic at this time. The internet as a medium of advertising is now becoming the most popular, since many advertisers are targeting the teens and young adults. This audience’s primary medium is the internet. That is why the internet ad spending, at least in the US has risen so drastically over the past years. "Hi5's expansive international reach helps global advertisers achieve their business goals, and creates tremendous value for all of our partners and advertisers."

>more info

Mobile Advertising

Mywaves is the largest mobile video source today. It has just recently announced many new advertising clients to help them get the word out about this product. According to the CEO of Mywaves, "In order for us to continue making our service enjoyable for consumers and effective for our advertising partners, we remain dedicated to monitoring all aspects of our service so we remain savvy to what works and what doesn't work for both. With the combination of our reach, researching and targeting capabilities, and variety of ad units to reach mobile consumers, our video service has become a leading platform for mobile ad delivery."
Starting this week, Mywaves has decided to launch a general awareness campaign for Microsoft, in India. The banner ads will be on Mywaves mobile sites, and will advertise the MS Office New Day Product line. In March Mywaves did advertising in cooperation with the Toyota Matrix and also worked on a campaign with Mini to promote their new model the “Club Man.” Mywaves is a good medium to use for advertisers to get their message out globally by using the same commercial that they would for tv or the internet. “Many advertisers are looking to maximize their creative investment by using the same ads they produced for their online and TV buys for their mobile campaigns.”

more info

Planet POGO

It has all come down to theme parks. Cartoon Network, owned by Turner International, is now planning to build a theme park in India, entitled Planet Pogo, which is also based on the Children’s channel Pogo. It has only been a little more than a decade after satellite television first beamed cartoons into India’s living rooms. They are already getting their first amusement park that is based on cartoon characters. This deal is enabling Cartoon Network to reintroduce characters such as Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones and Scooby Doo to a new generation of kids. They can bring back some of the classics. Disney is known as the pioneer in this area, since they repackaged Mickey Mouse to the world through Disney World and Disney Land.
Sales from distributing cartoons alone are rising very fast, more than 20% a year. It has been noticed that the children of India love the American cartoons. “Analysts say that for companies such as Turner the centers are a way of selling cartoons beyond the screen: encouraging children to spend their parents’ money on branded clothes and games in the "sealed" environment of a theme park.”

more info

AOL: new advertising strategy

It has been said that Dana Dunne, CEO of AOL plans to make AOL a European internet advertising giant. He plans to create more advertising over seas for AOL, which could then potentially create free service if the revenue from advertisers is enough. In 2007 AOL began to expand in Europe, starting off with 3 countries. After 11 months 11 more countries were on board. AOL’s mission now is to get its message across to the international advertising community. He plans to attract new users that had been loyal to Google and Yahoo.
The strategy being used to get more international advertisers includes “4 pillars,” which are improving free products and services, international expansion, building advertising platforms and deciding how budgets are best spent.
I think that the attempt to get more international users would be a great idea to up the advertising for AOL. I remember when AOL was the service to use back when I was in middle school. Now that there are so many more with better prices AOL has been put on the back burner. This new plan of AOL to get more advertisers and to possibly lower costs would be extremely beneficial. They just have to make sure it doesn’t get too cluttered like Yahoo!

more information