International Advertising – is there Still a Standardization Versus Local Adaptation Debate?
Abstract
For several decades now, much of the discussion of international advertising has focused on the degree to which advertising should be standardized or adapted. Even today, many academic articles start out with a literature review summarizing this “debate” and promising to offer additional insight. A close examination of the literature reveals that years of research on international advertising has provided some deeper insight on how to engage in international advertising. Most importantly, research consistently suggests that there are often key advantages to standardizing advertising at a strategic level but that executions do often need to be adapted.