Should International Marketers Standardise or adapt their Communication in Overseas Markets?
Introduction
The global marketing arena continues to be characterised by different competing contents and voices from marketers. Factors such as customer awareness, increased product varieties, and technological advancement have diversified marketing communication.
This competitive and dynamic international business environment has made businesses realise that customer needs cannot be met using a single communication approach. In this light, the need for Global Integrated Marketing Communication (GIMC) comes in handy.
Global integrated marketing communication referrers to the application of varied methods of well-organised brand promotion to achieve optimal marketing objectives across international borders. However, as companies of the 21st century compete to achieve optimum global integrated marketing communication value, the question of whether international marketers should standardise or adapt their communication in overseas markets arises.
Therefore, it is the interest of this paper to explore the topic of GIMC in the light of the above question.
Development of Global International Marketing Communication
According to Lee and Park (2007), one of the factors that led to the development of GIMC was reduced credibility and impact of marketing messages in the global markets. With the increase in marketing messages in the international media and other communication channels, the intended impression and effect on the customer began to decline.
Customers of the 20th century were bombarded with multiplicity of marketing messages to a point where paying attention to all of them became impossible. Lee and Park (2007) confirm that the use of one-sided message in marketing could not achieve the intended impact on the target markets. There was a need for both local and international companies to adopt a more integrative approach to marketing communication.
For example, companies needed to use a multiplicity of marketing approaches such as public relations, sales promotion, and advertising to maximise their appeal to all target markets. This move ensured increased frequency of demand amidst a sea of other competing messages.
According to Shafiulla and Babu (2014), another factor that has necessitated the adoption of global integrated marketing communication is the reduced cost of accessing market databases. With the advent of global information communication technology, it has become cheap to access, store, and retrieve important markets databases.
For example, one can access the name of a specific target market, for example all teachers in a particular country. This accessibility makes it possible to use customised marketing messages through mediums that appeal best to a particular market. The approach and access are also made easy. For example, one can use public relations techniques to appeal to a particular sector of the market and/or follow it up through social media messages.
Increase in client market knowledge has also enhanced global integrated marketing communication. The world literacy levels have continued to raise customer knowledge about marketing approaches such as advertising, public relations, and sales promotion.
Customers in the modern global society understand policies, strategies, and guidelines of advertising, public relations, and other marketing methods (Gould, Lerman, and Grein 1999). Such customers have also realised that companies can use their methods of marketing, rather than advertising to reach them.
With this knowledge, markets in the global arena have no choice but to carry out market research concerning their target markets’ status using different communication approaches. Global customers can now distinguish between make-belief, true, or informative marketing messages. Chen (2011) asserts that customers also watch or listen to marketing communication that interests them, depending on their tastes and preferences.
Another factor that has necessitated global integrated marketing communication is the witnessed increase in mergers and acquisitions in the global markets. According to Kliatchko and Schultz (2014), international marketing-oriented agencies that deal with public relations, advertising, and sales promotion have merged or partnered to offer inclusive marketing services.
This move has enhanced competition in the global marketing arena since companies that specialise in particular aspects of marketing are co-opted as a way of making the results of marketing processes more effective. For example, a public relations firm can bring the services of a specialised events manager, a public speaker, or an advertiser in its marketing programme.
Shafiulla and Babu (2014) further assert that companies that want to appeal to an international market need to link with established marketing companies in the land and/or seek partnership while venturing into the market. Therefore, partnerships among marketing companies have drawn more interest in the global integrated marketing.
Competition in the global market has also necessitated international integrated marketing communication. With the advent of communication technology, the world has become a global village. Therefore, business companies are focusing their messages on a global market, rather than their nations. Advertising companies have also gone past international borders.
The influence of a company in one continent is felt across the globe (Chen 2011). This situation calls for marketers in the world to consider integration of varied communication strategies in their countries of residence and in the global market. Cohen (2011) further asserts that people of different nations have a particular set of cultures that derive their interest in some marketing approaches.
The development levels of one country may be completely different from that of another. The method of marketing, technology, and media that a company uses to persuade such markets may be completely different.
Lee and Park (2007) confirm that fragmentation of international audience and media has also necessitated global international marketing communication. The need to expand a company’s products and services beyond the national borders is a great driving force among many companies.
Therefore, global markets are fragmented along national, racial, religious, educational, and economic lines. Integrated marketing methods maximise the appeal of marketing communication in a multicultural environment. According to Wilken and Sinclair (2011), cultural differences may result in disparities in media preference at the global market.
For example, a nomadic community may prefer promotional messages being relayed through folk media, while a farming community in New Zealand may prefer the use of television advertisements. The global media has also become fragmented in terms of international radios, televisions, social media, and transit media. The choice of media is as important as the message in it.
Finally, an increase in the number of products that are released into the market by manufacturers has also necessitated global integrated marketing communication. Wilken and Sinclair (2011) affirm that duplication of production technology, products, and services in the global market means that for a company’s products and services to stand out as the preference for global markets, better strategies of communication must be adopted.
Therefore, international integrated marketing communication has become important in attracting, retaining global customers, and increasing the sale of products and services.
Stages of Global Integrated Marketing Communication
Global integrated marketing communication takes various stages that are not organised in a hierarchical order. Every stage in this process is aimed at combining different marketing approaches with a view of optimising client experience. These stages may be implemented simultaneously or one after the other, depending on the market needs.
The initial stage of this process involves strategic planning of marketing communication. To optimise the impact of integrated global communication, Latunji (2011) reveals how the communicator plans on tactics that have to be adopted in coordinating various marketing approaches such as promotion, public relations, advertising, sales promotion, and events management.
These messages are structured in a way that they all appeal to the customer. Coordination of approaches is important in ensuring that the messages that customers are exposed to through one tactic such as sales promotion are congruent with what they access through billboards about the same product or service. Arrangement of how every tactic will assist the other or offset the gaps left behind by the other is also made.
However, such arrangements in a global market arena require the adoption of clear lines of communication with varied markets. Kliatchko and Schultz (2014) advise that it is important to understand the methods of communication that the people of a particular nation appreciate relative to the other. This appreciation will benefit the communicator in organising the approach to adopt when relaying the market communication.
The other stage in global integrated marketing communication involves the approval of the scope of the involved global marketing communication. At this point, GIMC evaluates the communication needs of the market from the perspective of the customer.
The marketer seeks to understand the product or services from the point of view of the customer, for example, the previous customer experience with a product or service from the company. The third level in global integrated marketing communication is embracing information communication technology. Information technology has changed the way international marketing was conducted in the 19th and 20th centuries (Latunji 2011).
Today, a person can send marketing messages to a variety of marketing tools while sited in an office in a different country. This situation means that customers are experiencing a variety of marketing platforms in the global market.
Reliance on different approaches of marketing communication has therefore become the norm to success. A customer may be receiving thousands of advertisements of a certain product through the television with no communication through direct marketing. Einwiller and Boenigk (2012) confirm that the desire to be inclusive, persuasive, and directed towards customers’ requirements is imperative in IGMC.
Therefore, the level of technological development of a country should be well evaluated before a marketing communication programme is rolled out. It is important to understand the communication infrastructure, for example the internet and mobile telephony reach and mass communication channels, to know how they are regulated.
According to Wilken and Sinclair (2011), the marketing team of a global company that intends to reach this market should plan its multiplicity of communication approaches to fit the new market. Application of information communication technology is seen as an integral point in ensuring efficiency of communication.
Finally, integration of a strategic financial plan is incorporated in the process. The company that is venturing into the global market then evaluates its budget and its feasibility in the foreign market. Wilken and Sinclair (2011) assert that the necessary skills that are required for different marketing communication approaches such as public relations, sales promotion, advertising, and social media marketing should be weighed against the available financial resources.
In some countries, the cost of advertising, public relations services, and media may be higher than that of other countries. Einwiller and Boenigk (2012) assert that it is important to stick within the available marketing budget than to embark on a huge marketing process that will collapse in the middle of the process. However, with a good budget and content for integration in different marketing communication, efficiency is easily achieved.
Reasons for Adapting Communication in Overseas Markets
According to Ozsomer (2008), in the current age of information communication technology, changes in the approaches and techniques of reaching, appealing, and persuading markets are witnessed every second. Marketing approaches change with variations in communication technology, specifically multimedia communication.
It is at this premise that global integrated marketing officers should appreciate and integrate their marketing communication with that of the target country. In integrated marketing communication approach, no single marketing approach can solely appeal and/or satisfy customers to drive sales.
Accessibility and expediency constitute another reason for foreign marketers to adapt their communication in overseas markets. In every other country, there exist communication infrastructures that the resident population depends on. Such a market is familiar with the media for communication and the approaches that communicators use.
Therefore, it is important for a new marketer in such an environment to begin by studying the communication lines in such a country to know how they function. According to Latunji (2011), since the major goal of GIMC is to reach the target markets with the intended message and persuade them, the marketer should integrate the most effective tool of communication into this marketing plan.
For example, if the people of a certain country have a wide or free access to the internet, they are able to access and respond to online marketing in a better way. If a particular target market lives in a marginalised area, its chances of accessing a public relations exhibition that is staged at the national theatre are very low. Hence, communication experts should not impose their methods, tactics, and approaches on a foreign market without prior research.
Integrating the existing marketing communication lines will also save on the cost of marketing (Ozsomer 2008). For example, instead of establishing new infrastructure to ensure marketing through mobile telephony that costs a company billions of money, it will be cost effective to adopt the already established infrastructure to reach customers.
The existing communication systems may also have a better database indicating the composition of the population. This plan may be of profound help to a new marketer. Moreover, adapting the existing lines of marketing and/or seeking their assistance may enhance the visibility of the new company in the foreign land.
Kliatchko and Schultz (2014) affirm that customer confidence in the existing marketing communication lines and approaches is likely to be better than the newly established ones that customers are encountering at the discovery stage. According to Reid, Luxton, and Mavond (2005), some of the media platforms in different countries enjoy the confidence and trust of a considerable percentage of the citizenly.
Marketing messages that are relayed through such media are likely to enjoy more acceptance than those that are delivered through an unfamiliar channel. In addition, Reid, Luxton, and Mavond (2005) point out that people in some markets may not understand some public relations marketing strategies such as exhibitions and media relations.
This situation may delay the intended impact of the whole process of marketing. Adapting to the already existing methods such as the use of comedies in marketing, use of road shows, and giveaways may serve the marketing objectives in a better way.
According to Jankovic (2012), it is also important to adapt and integrate the existing marketing strategies into a foreign market because cultural diversity may impede marketing efforts in new nations. People have their systems of beliefs that guide their conduct and relationships with others.
Such differences influence how different marketing approaches fit into the new system. The manner in which messages are crafted should depend on the type of culture that they are meant to address (Jankovic 2012).
For example, in a high system culture that is witnessed in most African countries, high reliance on nonverbal communication and use of indirect language are evident while low-system cultures that are common in America demonstrate heavy dependence on words. These variations may affect the marketing messages, approaches, and efficiency of a new marketer.
Conclusion
Conclusively, GIMC is aimed at achieving optimum customer exposure to a company’s brand and its persuasion to make sales. This marketing model takes a multidimensional approach under the premise that one method will offset the weakness of the other.
GIMC is specifically effective in a new market. In this discussion, it is clear that international marketers need to adapt their communication tactics in overseas markets since the existing communication lines already enjoy people’s confidence, have more databases, are cost effective, and/or independent on culture.
References
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