Marketing Around The World

When it comes to marketing, one of the important details to keep in mind is your target audience. When most people think of the target market, they mainly think about age or sex. Examples include advertising sports tickets to mainly male demographics, or advertising makeup to a majority female demographic. Advertisers have been segmenting the market to make sure their target market is the best it can be since the beginning of advertising. However, one aspect of marketing that often gets overlooked, especially by companies in the USA, is the idea of changing your marketing based on the country or state it will be shown in. Today, we will analyze why it is important to change your marketing message based on geographic location, and share some examples of the best marketing campaigns from around the world.

Why is Geographic Marketing Segmentation Important?

When it comes to marketing, one of the most important things to consider is the place where your target audience lives. You would not advertise the same product the same way to a family in the big city the way you would to a single parent living in a rural area. However, market segmentation goes so much farther than that. When it comes to marketing and advertising, especially internationally, we need to keep in mind the current events and culture of the people we are trying to advertise to. While advertisements in the USA may include things like bright lights, sounds, or weird scenes, those types of ads may be seen as unfavorable or disrespectful in places like China or South Korea. One of the best examples of changes in ads are in medical ads. The United States is one of the few countries in the world that run medial ads for different programs or drugs. This is not the case in other countries, and in the few ads you do see, you will rarely see them listing off all of the side effects like you do on American TV. This is in part due to the culture of the region, which trusts the consumer to make the best educated decision and do their own research, and due to different laws which regulate which ads can be shown on tv, when, and how. Throughout this post, keep in mind these ideas as we see some of the top advertisements from around the world.

Dumb Ways To Die

This advertising campaign was one of the most successful in Australia, and its influence quickly spread outside Australia, eventually becoming a worldwide hit. What started as a quirky song to poke fun at dying by terrible, fully preventable means, spread and spread into a hit song, prompting millions of listens in just a few days. This song then promoted a website, where people could go to promise to be safe around trains. Not only did this have the intended effect of increasing train safety, but the catchy tune still circulates its way around social media, reminding people constantly of their commitment to be safe around trains.

Share A Coke

This may be an ad campaign you are familiar with, as this one did also exist in the United States. However, this ad campaign first started in Australia, focusing on bringing others together, and uniting everyone in a common love for each other, and for Coke. This was a big hit in Australia, and the increased Coke sales had such a big impact that the company soon launched the campaign everywhere. This is one of Coca-Colas biggest and most successful ad campaigns, and is one of the most memorable campaigns in soda history.

Nike Write The Future

This ad campaign is one of the best at bringing people together, due to the lack of words, and the worlds shared love of soccer. One thing you will notice in this ad, in addition to the presence of a bunch of super star soccer players, is the lack of words. Instead, this ad focuses on bring people together, not by what separates them (culture, language, etc), but by what brings them together (joy, love of soccer, love of a fan). The world cup is always a great time to focus on international ads, as you know the program will have a lot of eyes on it, from all over the country. This ad campaign not only got people excited for the soccer tournament, but also reminded people we have a lot more that we share, rather than tears us apart.

Conclusion

In conclusion, one of the key things all of these ad campaigns shared in common, was that it promoted a positive emotion withing everyone. The "Dumb Ways To Die" commercial brought about laughter and a sense of promised security, while the other two focused on togetherness and the idea of happiness and joy in common purpose. While there are also countless examples of failed ad campaigns globally, these help serve as a reminder, that although there are a lot of different countries, each with their own laws, rules, and regulations, the correct ad campaign can help reach all of them

Did we miss one? Share your favorite global ad in the comments below!