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Consumer Information Cues in Television Advertising: A Cross Country Analysis William Renforth, D.B.A. Western Illinois University and Sion Raveed, D.B.A. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale International advertisers are faced with the decision of whether to individualize their messages in every country or to standardize their advertisements across countries. Further, if a worldwide advertising campaign is standardized, the extent of standardization must also be determined. Should only the basic appeal be maintained in each country, with changes in copy to account for local differences in each country, or should the entire campaign be standardized? Academicians and international marketing managers alike have long debated the desirability of standardized versus locally-tailored interna- tional advertising programs. Advocates of standardized messages em- phasize the similarities of basic consumer needs throughout the world and suggest that advertising carefully constructed around these basic motives can be used as a universal appeal. Additional advantages of uti- ilizing a uniform message worldwide, economies of scale in production, and administrative cost savings are also cited. Ryans (1969) has effectively stated the case supporting the approach of locally tailored advertising campaigns. He emphasizes the cultural and economic differences that exist among nations and suggests that advertising has to consider these differences. The fallacy of evaluating foreign environments in terms of domestic criteria, the magnitude of dif- ferences between countries at different stages of economic develop- Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science Summer, 1983, Vol. 11, No. 3, 216-225 0092-0703/83/1103-0216 $2.00 216

Consumer information cues in television advertising: A cross country analysis

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Consumer Information Cues in Television Advertising: A Cross Country Analysis

William Renforth, D.B.A. Western Illinois University

and

Sion Raveed, D.B.A. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

International advertisers are faced with the decision of whether to individualize their messages in every country or to standardize their advertisements across countries. Further, if a worldwide advertising campaign is standardized, the extent of standardization must also be determined. Should only the basic appeal be maintained in each country, with changes in copy to account for local differences in each country, or should the entire campaign be standardized?

Academicians and international marketing managers alike have long debated the desirability of standardized versus locally-tailored interna- tional advertising programs. Advocates of standardized messages em- phasize the similarities of basic consumer needs throughout the world and suggest that advertising carefully constructed around these basic motives can be used as a universal appeal. Additional advantages of uti- ilizing a uniform message worldwide, economies of scale in production, and administrative cost savings are also cited.

Ryans (1969) has effectively stated the case supporting the approach of locally tailored advertising campaigns. He emphasizes the cultural and economic differences that exist among nations and suggests that advertising has to consider these differences. The fallacy of evaluating foreign environments in terms of domestic criteria, the magnitude of dif- ferences between countries at different stages of economic develop- �9 Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

Summer, 1983, Vol. 11, No. 3, 216-225 0092-0703/83/1103-0216 $2.00

216

CONSUMER INFORMATION CUES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISING: 217 A CROSS COUNTRY ANALYSIS

ment, and the difficulty of imposing home office decisions on foreign branches are all cited as factors preventing the vast majority of interna- tional advertisers from using standardized messages.

Sommers and Kernan (1967) suggest that the appropriate approach to international advertising will vary according to the type of product and will depend on both product related and environmental factors. BuzzeU (1967) also identifies several environmental factors which will determine if advertising standardization is feasible. Cundiff (1965) and Wadinambiaratchi (1965) have suggested that a country's level of eco- nomic development also affects the nature of marketing structures and, thus, must also be considered in attempting to transfer advertising cam- paigns across countries.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to these discussions by analyzing the role of one specific advertisement characteristic, informa- tion content, in three different countries. In a recent issue of the Journal ofInternationalMarketing, Boddewyn (1981) pointed out the increasing interest, of national governments, in the level of information provided by advertising. The objective of this research is to determine if, in prac- rice, advertisement information content is similar in different countries and to account for the differences, if any, that ndght be observed. Speci- ficaUy, this paper reports the results of an operational replication in Ecuador of two earlier empirical studies of the information content of television advertising. The first study, conducted by Resnik and Stern (1977), reported on the information content of U.S. television advertis- ing. The second study, by Dowling (1980), repeated the first study in Australia.

METHOD

Stern and Resnik's operational definition of useful information con- tained 14 criteria which a buyer might use in a purchase decision pro- cess. Table I presents a list of these criteria. The criteria represent fac- tors identified as information cues which could be used in intelligent decision making.

Two judges separately content analyzed each advertisement accord- ing to their answer to the question, "Does this advertisement communi- cate any of the criteria listed in Table I about the product, service, or institution?"

A total of 108 commercials broadcast by stations in Ecuador were

RENFORTH AND RAVEED

TABLE I

Cr i ter ia for Classif icat ion

218

1. Price-value

2. Quality

3.. Performance

4. Components or contents

5. Ava i lab i l i t y , i . e . , d is t r ibut ion

6. Special offers

7. Taste

8. Nutr i t ion

9. Packaging or shape

10. Guarantees or warrantees

Iio Safety

12. Independent research

13. Company research

14. New ideas

Source: Resnik and Stern included in the sample. A commercial was required to contain only one of the informational cues in order to be classified as informative.

For each commercial that was analyzed, the researchers determined if the advertisement was informative or noninformative and, if it was informative, which informative criteria were presented.

Advertisements to be evaluated were selected at random between the following time periods: weekdays from 9@0 to 12.~)0 a.m., 12.~)0 to 4@0 p.m., and 7@0 to 11.~)0 p.m.; and weekends from 8.~)0 to 12.@0 a.m.,

CONSUMER INFORMATION CUES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISING: 219 A CROSS COUNTRY ANALYSIS

12.~0 to 4.~0 p.m., and 7./)0 to 11./}0 p.m. This classification scheme was selected to parallel the procedures used by Stern and Resnik and Dowling.

RESULTS

Content analysis of the advertisements revealed that 82.4 percent of the Latin American television commercials satisfied one or more of the criteria listed in Table I. In contrast, Resnik and Stern found that only 49.2 percent of their sampled U.S. television commercials satisfied one or more of the informative criteria. Dowling reported that 74 percent of the Australian commercials could be classified as informative. This striking result is perhaps the most startling of this study's findings. Since this study replicated the research method used in the prior two studies, it can be assumed a/n/or/ that there are substantial differences between advertising in Ecuador and advertising in the U.S. and Australia.

However, this overall estimate of advertising informativeness must be disaggregated to determine if this finding is uniform across various broadcast times and product categories. Table II presents the ratio of informative to noninformative advertisements by time of day in each country. In the U.S. the proportion of advertisements broadcast in the

TABLE I I

Ratio of Informative to Noninformative Ads

Morning Afternoon Evening

U.S. 0.8:1 0.67:1 L5:1

Australia 7:1 4:1 2:1

Ecuador 6:1 5.8:1 3.3:1

evening are far more informative than those broadcast during the morn- ing or afternoon- with the later showing a much higher proportion of noninformative advertisements. In Australia the pattern is reversed, the more informative ads appear in the earlier viewing hours. The Ecua- dorian pattern tends to follow the Australian, although the high overall level of informativeness precluded a statistically significant association. Apparently in Ecuador and Australia, as audiences became more heter- ogeneous in the later viewing hours, advertising shifts from a specific

RENFORTH AND RAVEED ~ 0

product related theme to a general audience related theme. Many of the advertisements broadcast at these later times portray an "image" designed to position the product in the market. Thus, by using the re- strictive definition of"informative" adopted in this study, these lifestyle advertisements, aimed primarily at the broad later hour viewing audi- ence, were classified as noninformative.

The type of product advertised did not account for significant differ- ences in the informativeness of Ecuadorian commercials. For the pur- pose of analysis the sampled commercials were grouped into six rela- tively homogeneous product classifications, as shown in Table III.

The results indicate that the same, overall high proportion of informa- tive commercials exists across all product types. There was a slight, but not significent, tendency for a greater proportion of noninformative ads to exist in the personal care and institutional areas, however. This is in contrast with the results reported in the other studies, which both showed significant association between the informativeness of the advertisement and the type of product advertised. The U.S. results indi- cated that advertisements for food, personal care, and laundry and household products were informative in fewer than 50 percent of the cases, while institutional, toys, hobbies and transportation, and "other" advertisements were informative in greater than 50 percent of the cases. The Australian results indicate that advertisements for food, per- sonal care, and institutional subjects were informative in 60 percent of the cases, while advertisements in the remaining product categories were informative in over 80 percent of the cases. Thus, for the U.S. and Australia the relative levels of informativeness for the categories were in the same direction. In Ecuador it is notable that advertisements for laundry and household products, food, and "other" seem to be compara- tively more informative, relative to the area averages, than is the case in the U.S. and Australia.

DISCUSSION

The key question suggested by this researach is, "Why are advertise- ments in a country such as Ecuador more informative than those in the U.S. and Australia?" The reason, it appears, lies in the life cycle of the products advertised. The products depicted in the Ecuadorian adver- tisements studied were classified by stage in the product life cycle: introduction, growth, and maturity. Table IV depicts the relationship

221 CONSUMER INFORMATION CUES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISING:

A CROSS COUNTRY ANALYSIS

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RENFORTH AND RAVEED 222

between a product's life cycle stage and the informativeness of its tele- vision advertising in Ecuador. Commercials in the introduction stage tend to be more informative, while the opposite is true for products in the maturity stage. These results imply that for newer products, informative advertising may be necessary to educate the audience about the unique characteristics of the product, while for more mature products the information is of less importance. This observation is also consistent with the pattern noted in the Stern and Resnik study.

TABLE IV

Number of Informative and Noninformative Advertisements by Stage in the Product L i fe Cycle

Informative

Noninformative

L i fe Cycle Stages

Introduct ion Growth Maturi ty

23 37 29

1 3 15

Chi square equals 29.7, p < .005

Interestingly, 64 of the 108 (59 percent) products surveyed in Ecuador were in the introduction or growth stage; only 23 of 234 (10 percent) products categorized in the U.S. study were in a comparable early stage of the life cycle. This suggests that a greater proportion of products advertised on television in a developing country such as Ecuador can be considered new and, hence, amenable to a promotion strategy emphasiz- ing information. This greater proportion of new products is, in turn, likely to account for the greater observed frequency of informative advertising in Ecuador.

This explanation is in sharp contrast with that proposed by Dowling (1980) to account for the greater percentage of informative advertising occurring in Australia compared to the United States. Dowling's ex- planation centered on the regulatory environment facing Australian advertising and concluded that: the greater degree of government regulation led to greater information content in the television commercials.

The present research findings in Ecuador call into question the uni- versality of the suggested explanation that higher levels of advertising

CONSUMER INFORMATION CUES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISING: 223 A CROSS COUNTRY ANALYSIS

informativeness are accounted for by "stricter" levels of either govern- ment or self-regnlation. Advertising informativeness in Ecuador is higher than that prevailing in both Australia and the United States. Yet, regulation of advertising activities, in all forms, is substantially less stringent in Ecuador than both Australia and the U.S.

The results found from the Australian study can also be explained via the product life cycle theory. Although specific product life cycle data were not included for the advertisements studied in Australia, Cateora and Hess (1979) suggest that many more Australian products may be in the earlier stages of the product life cycle than those included in the U.S. data. Their analysis makes the point that many products which have reached maturity in highly developed economies may yet be innovations or growth products in lesser developed economies. This, in turn, suggests that the proportion of mature products in an economy is likely to increase directly with the stage of economic development. Given that products in the earlier stages of the product life cycle more frequently use informative promotional programs, this explanation would provide a more universal account for the results observed in the U.S., Australia, and Ecuador.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study also have two important implications for international marketing theory and practice. First, these results provide some insights into the international transferability of market- ing programs. Recent evidence has suggested that national identity is being reemphasized for promotion strategy in developing countries. This study extends these discussions to one specific aspect of promotion strategy- the information content of television advertisements. Re- sults indicate that commercials in Ecuador contain substantially more information cues than those in the U.S. and Australia. International marketing managers may wish to consider this factor in designing or adopting promotional programs for their countries, as this is one of the few documented differences between a developing country and U.S. advertising practices.

Second, this research suggests an alternative explanation for differ- ences in the observed frequency of informative advertising among coun- tries. This explanation suggests that the number of products in the ini- tial, early stages of the product life cycle accounts for the proportion of informative advertisements. Thus, countries which advertise greater

RENFORTH AND RAVEED 224

proportions of relatively new or innovative products are also likely to exhibit greater numbers of informative commercials. The explanation is in contrast to the earlier explanation suggested by Dowling which focused on the role of external regulation in determining the frequency of informative commercials. Kaynak and Mitchell have suggested (1981) that "in developed countries advertising copy contains more informa- tion due to a higher level of literacy and education." In contrast to this belief, Hendon (1981) has suggested that in Australia marketers also use advertising to perform communication tasks required by the market situation. He also indicates that providing information may be an espe- dally important task in the context of a developing country where peo- ple may not always be aware of the possibilities which new products offer. Obtaining data from a developing country (Ecuador) permitted contrasts with an industrialized economy (Australia} and a post- industrial economy (United States). The results of this study provide support for Hendon's position.

Several limitations must be kept in mind in interpreting the results of this study. First, the sample of Ecuadorian advertisements, although fairly comparable in size to the other studies, may not be necessarily representative of the wide diversity of television advertising in all developing countries. Clearly more research in more countries is required before adequate generalizations can be derived. Second, addi- tional research is needed to document the relationship between product life cycle stage and advertising informativeness. Although the informa- tion presented here is highly suggestive, further investigations in other countries are required before reaching a definitive conclusion.

REFERENCES

Boddewyn, J.J. 1981. "Advertising Regulation, Self Regulation and Self Discipline Around the World." Journal of International Marketing, Volume 1, Issue 1.

Buzzell, Robert D. 1967. "Can You Standardize Multinational Marketing?" Harvard Business Review, 46, 6, (November- December) 102-113.

Cateora, Philip and Hess, John. 1979. International Marketing $th Edition. Home- wood, Illinois. Richard D. Irwin.

Cundiff, E.W. 1965. "Concepts in Comparative Retailing." Journal of Marketing. (Jan- uary) 56-63.

Dowling, Grahame. 1980. "Information Content in U.S. and Australian Television Advertising." Journal of Marke ring. 44, 4, (Fall) 34-37.

Hendon, Donald W. 1981. "The Advertising-Sales Relationship in Australia." Journal of Advertising Research. 21, 1, (February) 37.

Kaynak, Erdener and Mitchell, Lionel. 1981. "Analysis of Marketing Strategies Used

CONSUMER INFORMATION CUES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISING: 225 A CROSS COUNTRY ANALYSIS

in Diverse Cultures." Journal of Advertising Research. 21, 3, (June) 25. Resnik, Alan and Stern, Bruce. 1977. "An Analysis of Information Content on Tele-

vision Advertising." Journal of Marketing. (January) 50-53. Ryans, John K. 1969. "Is It Too Soon to Put a Tiger in Every Tank?" Columbia Journal

of World Business. 4, 2, (March - April) 69-75. Sommers, Montrose and Kernam, Jerome. 1967. "Why Products Flourish Here and

Fizzle There?" Columbia Journal of World Business. 2, 2, (March- April) 89-97. Wadinambiaratchi, George. 1965. "Channels of Distribution in Developing Econo-

mies." Business Quarterly. (Winter) 74-82.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

WILLIAM E. RENFORTH is Associate Professor of Marketing at Western Illinois University. His work has appeared in the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Small Business Management, Management World, and Managerial Psychology. Dr. Renforth received his D.B.A. and M.B~. degrees from Indiana University. Current re- search concerns are the characteristics of energy conscious consumers and identification of critical factors influencing the international transfer of management development programs.

SION RAVEED was an Associate Professor of Marketing and Interna- tional Business at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He received his M.B.A. and D.B~. from Indiana University. His main re- search interests centered on foreign investment entry strategies and comparative marketing. Dr. Raveed has authored a book on foreign investment and published in Managerial Psychology, Caribbean Studies, World Economic Review, and The Wall Street Journal.