Intercultural Communication Strategies in the Localization of McCann Erickson Philippines-Coca Cola Advertisement

Abstract

Advertising is important in building the image and strengthening the position of a company and its product or brand in any market. Its main purpose is to convince its target market that this brand or this service is for them. Today, as we enter the age of globalization, companies especially the multinational ones, consider the use of a global approach wherein a single strategy from its central location is distributed and used by all the branches across regions. This poses a challenge for advertising since there is little assurance that one strategy will work for all types of market considering that they come from various regions and are of different cultures. Culture is a great influence to an individual. In advertising, one type of advertisement may be appealing to one culture, but may be offensive to another. To communicate effectively means that the consumers (receivers) understand the advertisement (message) the way that the advertising agency (sender) wants them to be understood. However, this can only be possible with adequate knowledge of the culture of the market. This is the challenge of cross-cultural advertising, to effectively promote the brand to various types of markets with different cultures without having to change the "mark" of that brand. McCann Erickson, is one of the leading advertising agencies worldwide. Coca Cola is among the big companies in the roster of accounts that McCann Erickson Philippines handles. It is one of the most powerful brands worldwide and in our country, the name 'Coca Cola' or 'Coke' has become a prototype for softdrink. While Coca Cola uses a global approach for marketing and advertising, McCann Erickson Philippines finds means on how to promote Coca Cola products effectively in the local market through making a localized version of the strategy. This is where the need for knowledge in intercultural communication comes in. The general problem that this study aims to answer is: What are the intercultural communication strategies used by McCann Erickson Philippines in the Coca Cola cross-cultural advertising process? In order to determine the answer to this general question, the following are the sub-problems of the study: 1. How is Intercultural Communication defined in the field of advertising? 2. How is cross-cultural advertising applied by McCann Erickson Philippines in the localization of international Coca Cola advertisements? 3. What are the factors considered by McCann in the Coca-Cola cross-cultural advertising process? Which of these factors are considered as intercultural communication challenges? 4. How does McCann Erickson Philippines ensure that the key message of Coca Cola is maintained while modifying international Coca Cola advertisements to suit a different kind of public? This study was done qualitatively. The researcher used the descriptive method in identifying the localization process and determining the intercultural communication strategies used by McCann Erickson Phils, in order to promote Coca Cola in the local market. Primary and secondary interview schedules were conducted in order to gather data for the study. For the primary interviews which used purposive sampling, there were four respondents from McCann Erickson Phils, and two from Coca Cola Company. The secondary interview used convenience sampling since it only attempted to gather additional information for verification of the perception on consumers and evaluation of the strategies. The respondent for the secondary interview came from the Consumers Union of the Philippines. The results of the study showed that according to surveys, Coca Cola is one of the most powerful brands worldwide and the number one Softdrink ng Bayan in the Philippines. In order to better sell its products and in order to impart its key message of having the quality of real refreshment, Coca Cola seeks help from McCann Erickson Philippines. Localization of the international advertisements is often done by McCann wherein they inject the use of local material and the native language of the market in order to get their attention. For Coca Cola, McCann crafts a local version of their strategy in order to better promote the brand to the Filipino consumers. The advantage of localizing international advertisements is McCann communicates to a market they know. It is cost-efficient as well. On the other hand, the disadvantages are the possible inconsistencies and sometimes, the budget at hand. The exact 'fit' of the ad becomes a difficulty because the need for acceptability, impact and relevance to the local market should be guaranteed. McCann Erickson and Coca Cola see consumers as brand conscious, practical, and love novelty, entertainment and music. This makes humor and musical TV ads on top of the list for Filipino consumers. In the consumers point of view, McCann Erickson Phils, has been aggressive in promoting Coca Cola through TV ads. This is the reason why Coke is considered as the Softdrink ng Bayan. The only competition Coke has is the emerging alternatives and share of pocket. With the findings obtained from the research, it can be concluded that: intercultural communication is being able to communicate a certain message to other cultures, to different cultures effectively, appropriately." (Abrera, 2006) In advertising, intercultural communication happens when a company, usually a multinational, tries to promote its global campaign to various types of markets within and across regions. Cross-cultural advertising comes in as the advertising agency tries to promote a global campaign, originally done in the central location of the company, in a different location, to a different market. This is when a global strategy is made to fit the local taste of the consumers. Cross-cultural advertising can be seen in McCann Erickson Phils.' localization process of the international TV ads of Coca Cola. Since the main idea, called "pattern ad", comes from Coca Cola Atlanta, McCann makes a local version of the strategy with the assurance of keeping the key message of Coke and get this message across Filipino consumers. Primarily, in the process of cross-cultural advertising, the main factor considered is the local market 一 the Filipino consumers. Before McCann Erickson localizes an international ad, they have to consider the relevance of theme of the international ad to the local market and how the local market perceives the brand. Moreover, they make assumptions on how the Filipino consumers would relate and react to the advertisement. Other factors would be the position of the brand and the competitors, and the budget. Having identified these factors, the challenge posed to McCann is how make the localized TV ad appear appealing, relevant, and convincing to the Filipino consumers. Moreover, there is the challenge of making the consumers perceive the image and the value of the brand correctly, or as the client desires. The emergence of many alternatives also serves as a challenge for effective advertising. McCann Erickson is a world-renowned advertising agency. It is able to successfully communicate global messages of their multinational clients to different types of markets with different cultures in different parts of the world effectively. The clients global campaigns adapted are those that are in conformity with the beliefs and practices McCann Erickson Philippines, and the local market as well. Before adapting, McCann sees to it that it knows what the local market really wants and it knows the value and the key message that the client wants to impart. This is why they do market research and pretesting of the localized ads that they do. It is because they want to show only what is relevant to the local market. Knowing what the client and what market wants allows them craft an advertisement that needs no gimmick because they highlight the real strengths of the brand and this is how they make effective TV ads. This is how the credo uTruth Well Told" is applied. Therefore, the main intercultural communication strategy used by McCann Erickson in the Coca Cola cross-cultural advertising process is the localization process itself. This process includes the localization of the global strategy provided by Coca Cola Atlanta and the use of local materials for the production of the advertisements. Another strategy is its market research done through focus grouped discussions and field surveys, because this research dictates the ideas that McCann should and should not use in order to successfully promote Coca Cola to the people. Once McCann knows the consumers 'wants and needs', it allows the McCann team to draft an effective advertisement which will get the attention of the Filipino market and at the same time impart the key message of Coca Cola. The researcher recommends continued use of the global approach in advertising for Coca Cola to maintain a single image and allow the market to remember their products easily. For McCann Erickson, the researcher recommends it to continue injecting local insights in the adaptation of international advertisements and its intercultural communication strategies in order to build rapport to the local market. Further studies on other media used by McCann Erickson in advertising Coca Cola, the impact of McCann in Coca Cola Atlanta's decision on global strategy, and a recall on how Coca Cola brand was built in the Philippines are also suggested.