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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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!

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International McDonalds

McDonalds is always a great place to start when considering the international market since they allow us here in the US to compare their ads and aspects to ours. One commercial I found on youtube was one made for the Egyptian market. It was a couple going to McDonalds, and it was basically the same as that I have seen for Dr. Pepper. The guy orders something and the girl reaches for some and he completely freaks out. They then continue to fight, while “I Would Do Anything For Love” blasts in the background.
I find this commercial interesting because it is basically something that you would see here in the US, the only thing that is different is that it is in Arabic. Also I think it is funny that the same basic idea of this commercial was presented here except for another product. Obviously it is not an extremely ingenious idea, however it is still kind of funny to see.
I feel McDonalds ads are often universal, and globally accepted due to the fact that they are an international icon. McDonalds is a representation of America (in a way) but tweaked by each specific location to fit the needs and desired of the market. McDonalds will always be popular, since it is cheap and known all over the world.

BBC and Rolex, new friends?

The BBC, one of the most prestigious news stations in the nation, has now accepted advertising from Rolex on their website. Rolex has now been labeled he official advertiser on BBC.com, the international site for the BBC. Rolex, the Swiss watchmaker, will sponsor all the content on BBC. Com, including news, weather, and sports. This will also help in a move to brand the message to 28 million non-UK users. However, users from Britain will be redirected to the UK site that does not have any advertisements. This is because there have been a lot of concerns raised that the BBC is becoming commercialized.
This Rolex partnership will be the first in a series of advertisements for the BBC. Critics believe that this decision to have advertising on the site is a bad move for the BBC since it is a public service broadcaster. A spokeswoman said: "The BBC’s reputation at home and internationally is based on its freedom from advertising and commercial pressures.


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Nielsen goes Global!

Nielsen Media Company has just announced that they will be collaborating with the New York Times to announce their first international campaign. This new campaign is based on brand awareness. They want to be seen internationally as the premier media research company. To accomplish this goal, Nielsen will feature ads in NY Times sports magazine called PLAY, which comes out four times a year. Nielsen will be the sole advertiser for the August issue of PLAY, which is focused solely on the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The campaign however, will also feature ads in print, online, radio and mobile. The New York Times chief advertising officer Denise Warren stated, “This is an exciting pairing of two global organizations, with each one showing a powerful brand on one of the biggest stages in the world—the 2008 Olympics.” Karen Watson, senior vice president of communications for Nielsen also mentioned, “we want to welcome the world to Nielsen, alliance with the New York Times is a wonderful opportunity to showcase Nielsen as a global consumer insights company.”
The campaign is planned to launch this summer, with PLAY being distributed in the Sunday August 3rd edition of the New York Times, as well as the International Herald Tribune in Asia. There are also print ads and website banner ads for each of these publications.

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Metro-Monial?

Metro-monial…what does this mean to you? Well, if you are thinking that it sounds a lot like matrimonial, you are on the right track. SimplyMarry.com is a website that targets the metropolitan user in India. Their newest viral campaign theme “Fire n Ice,” communicates directly to the youth of the metros, and plans to be “India’s only metro-monial site.” It not only influences people to get married; however it talks about relationships both before and after marriage.
The site features animations expressing romance as well as a romantic soundtrack that enables it to cross language barriers creating an understanding of it universal. The “love is in the air” theme shows a boy and a girl that are made for each other. There are also links included which allows users to send the animations to their soul mates! The creative aspects of the site show both the highs and lows of relationships and how to work through bad times. The boy and girl both morph into different animals and objects in response to each other’s moods and feelings.
This seems to be acute site that is targeting young people, and kind of pushing the idea of marriage. I understand that it is saying that it is relationship based, but the title being “simplymarry” is saying that marriage is simple, and you should just do it. Is this really a good message to give to the youth? Different cultures, different ideals.


to read more, click here!

Come to Canada!

Come to Canada, invent the next Blackberry…that title grabs your interest. What are they talking about? Well, it turns out Canada, specifically the Manitoba region is working on a campaign to entice foreign students to come to Canada. Canada is lagging in their number of international students, where the UK the US and Australia are all flourishing. They are trying to use the idea of coming to Canada to create technological wonders as the main focus of the campaign. Bang marketing in Montreal is working on slogans for this national branding campaign; they are federally sponsored for $2 million. Other than “Imagine inventing the next blackberry,” the slogans include, “The world is my playground, I study in Canada,” as well as “Knowledge without boundaries.”
Canada used to be ranked within the top 5 destinations for foreign students, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, but now it has moved down to number 14. This new branding campaign is set to work in tandem with other new federal measures to appeal to international students. There will be scholarships for foreign students these scholarships and the branding campaign is hoped to improve Canada’s poor market share.

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International Business....in the air

American Airlines has recently put together a new advertising approach to focus on their international business class passengers, known as the Flagship Experience. To promote this concept there will be a new 30 second television commercial that will at first be aired in select markets during the Academy Awards. This commercial will feature computer-generated imagery of the new features of the premium international business class. Then they will continue to create a website that includes in depth information and features that will be available in eight countries worldwide. www.aa.com/flagship
According to Dan Gorton, American Airlines Vice President of Marketing, “This Flagship Experience approach is different from what we've done in the past. It reflects how our brand is evolving, and it demonstrates that we're in tune with our customers' needs."
American Airlines is the world’s largest airline, and through this new campaign plans to showcase their international business class. The new seats are designed by Recaro, and are extremely adjustable, and also feature a bed length of 76 inches. There are privacy dividers as well as interlocking tray tables. It should be quite luxurious.


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ACT responsible

The international advertising agency (IAA) has decided to become more proactive in promoting social responsibility. There is a program entitled “One Minute Responsibility,” which the ACT organized. It is an initiative of AdForum, which features spots addressing a variety of causes. This program is made up of 25 campaigns that are part of the global ACT responsible tour.
This is said to be some of the best creative work for non-commercial causes, according to Mr. Mustapha Tabba, president of the IAA chapter in Jordan. Herve de Clerck, initiator of the ACT and IAA vice president of corporate responsibility made sure to include, “Our goal is to federate, inspire and promote great work in advertising and communication, in favour of social responsibility and sustainable development, and to show how advertising plays a significant role in raising awareness in today’s crucial world issues”.
Oliver de Montchenu, managing director of EuroNews sales (the channel that will be airing these social responsibility shorts) expressed that the staff of EuroNews is delighted to promote these ideas of social responsibility. “It shows the global capacity of the advertising industry to stimulate further the development of responsible communications”.
I think that this is a great idea for EuroNews to take on these promotions. It is definitely good to see advertising attempting to work for something beneficial to the world, such as sustainability, rather than only constant consumerism. It is definitely beneficial to attempt to inform people about these issues, and the fact that advertising agencies are taking it up internationally shows that the US should jump on this bandwagon.

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Digital Signage Sweeps Canada

The Victoria Airport Academy has just entered a contract with new advertising in its airport. There are strong ties with this group to Vancouver Island. Richard Paquette, President and CEO of Victoria Airport Authority said, “Any level of business, large or small, local or global, that wishes to communicate with our passengers and guests now has that opportunity."
There is a plan to install these digital signs, created by Immediate Images Inc., which is British Columbia’s leading provider of digital signage. This signage is installed on 27 LCD screens throughout the airport. These displays are connected to the internet, and can be updated or change their ads from any computer with internet access. "The Immediate Images system allows advertisers to schedule ads to run five minutes from now or five years from now", said Farr, of Immediate Images, "And the fact that the medium is dynamic, not static, means that ads get noticed – they are seen and remembered."
This Victoria International Airport serves all areas of Canada, as well as the U.S and Mexico. It is also the second busiest airport in the province of Birtish Columbia. This is good for these digital signs because they are a new idea that will be seen by many people that walk through the airport. There will also be connections to people from the U.S and Mexico since that is where service is common. If these are a success in Canada, it might be time we bring these digital signs to the U.S, not only in airports but all over the cities as well.

Victoria Airport Advertising

Advertising Melting Pot

The term “Melting pot” is often thought of as a good thing. New York is known as a melting pot because it has a variety of different people and different cultures all in one area. This helps create diversity and opens out minds up to other areas of the world and how they do things. Unfortunately not all people like the idea of a melting pot. In the Middle East marketing experts are calling for ad industry regulation. There is disruption of Arab culture with all of the international advertising campaigns that are invading the Arab culture. According to Al Hassan, Managing Director of Flagship Projects Marketing, "International advertising campaigns Arabised in the region are playing a big role in killing Arab culture and creating a melting pot of Western culture.”
This concept is linked to the idea of globalization and how American Culture is influencing all other areas in the world, eventually causing them to leave their original ideas and traditions in the wake of McDonalds and Nike. “Al Hasan added that advertising associations should hold responsibility for enhancing the Arab advertising industry, taking it to a new level of professionalism and innovation through a 360 approach. This approach should include creativity, efficiency, quality and value-added services provided to clients working in different industries, which are expanding both horizontally and vertically in an unprecedented manner.”
The idea that has been introduced is to stop the export of international artworks that are introduced into Arab markets. There are global trends and increased branding of international products that create the key targets to competition in 2008. The advertising messages that have, and should speak directly to Arab consumers are not proving as relevant to regional markets. “Arab brands are not able to compete on international levels according to latest studies: very finite number of Arab brands was included in the Top 100 Brands in the World list.”
It is a common fact that there are many youth internationally that would rather accept the western ways in forms of food and clothes rather than stick to their traditional culture. It is interesting to take into consideration the idea if this is our fault on the American side, since we want to bring our culture overseas or is it just the way it is. People, especially young people want to keep up with the newest products and trends. If what they are seeing on television is advertising for the new Air Jordan’s or an i-phone, that is what they will desire. That is the basis of advertising, and for America, the fact that it is spreading internationally is a goal achieved.



http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=17247&t=1&c=33&cg=4

Pepsi...drinks or snacks?

PepsiCo is known as one of the largest beverage manufacturers globally. It was interesting to hear that this company thought that they would end up with lower profits. According to the Dow Jones, “Pepsi's shares had fallen nearly 5% since Jan. 28, the day before Pepsi Bottling Group Inc.” There was some worry that they would not recover from this downfall.
However, of course they did. It is often forgotten that many of their products include snack foods, which internationally have a large share of the market growth. Their snacks such as Doritos and Quaker rice cakes are part of their broader international footprint. Many of Pepsi’s bottlers do not think about the food line, and just consider their beverages, which have main locations focused in the U.S, Canada, Greece, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Turkey. "The product and geographic diversification benefited PepsiCo significantly," said Todd, Portfolio Manager at Greenwood Capital Associates, which holds PepsiCo shares.
“International earnings rose 12% as revenue grew 26%, including seven percentage points from the weak dollar. Volume growth was led by the Asia Pacific region, which posted a 21% jump.”
Clearly PepsiCo has been doing well internationally, I would like to see how their ad campaigns are different compared to ours here in the U.S. Also, it would be interesting to find out why the snack products go over so well internationally while we are more focused on the beverage. Pepsi appears to be an “American” drink that you would get at a baseball game while eating a hot dog. Maybe this is why the idea of a nice cold refreshing Pepsi is not so popular overseas. They would rather have snack foods that do not have any underlying “All American” meaning behind them.

Pepsi had also recently had a competition to design your own can, this might be a way of trying to reach out to other markets. By doing this, it gets people interested in what new ideas can be brought to Pepsi and will then have Pepsi on the mind, and possibly look for the new can while browsing the beverage aisle.

PepsiCo info.

Facebook Fever

Check your Facebook! Has there ever been a day that went by when you haven’t discussed or heard someone else talking about the ever-popular facebook. The site that had originally been for college students to network, usually within their schools, and then branched out to the public is now embarking on a new campaign to attract international users.
Facebook has 64 million users, with about 2 million in the UK, however they want to introduce a new feature, a non-English version. The goal is to have this out by Easter. It is part of “an ambitious overseas expansion strategy.” The Plan here is to generate more users across Europe, in the non-English speaking countries, as well as in Australasia (a region of Oceania: New Zealand, Australia and neighboring islands in the Pacific Ocean).
According to Chandlee, Facebook’s commercial director, Facebook is also planning to expand its “Beacon platform,” which launched in October with 45 parnterships, some of them include Coca Cola and Amazon.com. Facbook is hoping to expand within the next 90 days; they want to open up to more international advertisers.
If Facebook enables people speaking and writing in other languages to access the site, it will increase this worldwide communication even more than it already has been. This is a big step for facebook, since it has only been over the past year and a half that they decided to open up their site to any users of all different networks. There has been some uproar about this feature of facebook, since it is now compared to myspace, which is creepster central. Even though facebook does allow any user to become a part of this online community, I still feel that it is not quite as trashy as myspace.
It would definitely be interesting to see how this international market changes things, with more connections to other people in other parts of the world. Also the marketing and advertising of overseas would be something to keep an eye on. Is the plan to market American products internationally, or will they then incorporate international products to America as well? I’m always interested to see different items, and how other countries promote them.

Internet International

Google has always been the top search engine in the U.S as well as internationally competing with yahoo and Microsoft. Google holds 48% of the market, where Yahoo holds 33% and Microsoft holds 38%. Yahoo and Microsoft are planning on teaming up to take over the International market, starting off with their conquer of Europe. This is frightening for Google, because if they do team up they will definitely take over the International market. According to Wayne Arnold, the chairman of the Practitioners in Advertising's digital group, "a combination of the two will make one of the most powerful display ad propositions out there - a huge growth area as search advertising also starts to plateau - but it doesn't necessarily solve the issue of Google's search dominance." This show how powerful the merger of these two will be internationally, for search engine purposes, as well as advertising in general, since there is a lot of advertising that comes out of both of these sites.
Google does hold 70% of the UK market for advertising at this point in time as well as a large portion of Australia's market, however in Japan Yahoo is the big name. The Asian countries are eventually going to be the most important to target, because of their economic growth and technological advancements, and if Yahoo and Microsoft can tackle that region, as well as have a slight influence in other international markets, they will become very successful. The merge is not definite yet, but according to experts it would make a lot of sense, because it "automatically gives scale against Google to operate as a gateway of massive size for people using the internet."

To find out more about the merge of Yahoo and Google click here


I think this merge would be very interesting, as to see how it would affect advertising globally. I have noticed that there are more advertisements on Yahoo, and they also used to have television commercials where Google never did. Maybe this would create a connection between U.S and International advertising buzz, since we would use similar search engines with influential advertising.

McGlobal

So I thought we would start out with a slight overview of International Marketing. Basically it is marketing products to other countries. Pretty simple? I think so.

I have decided to focus on one aspect of this topic, new products. I want to see the new gizmos and gadgets that come out in all countries and then possibly stick with a few to see how they are marketed internationally. Maybe these tactics will differ from their country of origin to the country with the most likely consumer base.

Just to start, I thought we could look at the globally popular McDonalds. McDonalds is in pretty much every country you can imagine. It is often thought of as a symbol of America, however it can be found in places from Paris to even Barbados.
McDonalds in other countries often acts as an American’s place to get some kind of food they are already familiar with. Guess again! Wherever you are, there may be changes to the McDonalds menu. For example in India, people do not eat beef, so they created a chicken sandwich entitled the Maharaja Mac. Check these out…


McDonalds in Europe have undergone a new look. The McDonalds arches have now become a more upscale fast food chain. The furniture in these European McDonalds have gone from the plastic red and yellow benches to green designer chairs, some even being leather! Many of them include Internet access as well as ipod rentals for children. This appears to me that it is starting to become more of a Starbucks where people can hang out, in a class environment rather than a cheap fast food joint. These changes have been paying off; the sales in Europe exceed those in the United States. Sales in Europe rose 15% which is a lot more than the US’s 6% increase.
Along with changing the décor, there have been some changes to the food. Of course they still sell burgers and fries (always the best selling items) however there have been some additions, such as in France a cheese burger with different French cheeses. The European market has been working to target their customers desires, which are different from Americans. The French especially, like to have smaller meals, where McDonalds (at least in the US) emphasizes the supersize. A lot of this image change has to do with different culture, and I think that is what companies must do to continue to grow in international markets.

Testing testing, let's see how this goes...