ASB-4521 International Marketing Communication Assignment Sample
Introduction
In this concise essay, a thorough discussion will be made regarding the use of one of the important marketing strategies, named comparative advertising during international marketing communication. Furthermore, a significant example of direct comparative advertising as well as indirect comparative marketing will be considered in detail.
Usage of comparative advertising in the international marketing communication
Comparative advertising is one of the significant marketing strategies which innumerable companies incorporate in its strategic management which in order to promote its products to the international markets or stakeholders. Moreover, it may be stated that with the help of comparative advertising the management of most of the companies engage in making certain comparisons to the products of the same type that belong to one or more than one companies. In addition to that, comparative advertising holds utmost importance as it enables the management of any company to point out certain key features of its products to all the prospective stakeholders as well as international companies. In order to evaluate the use of comparative advertising in the international marketing communication, it may be mentioned that comparative advertising enables any company to make comparisons about certain features such as price, quality, delivery terms and services. However, there are certain pros and cons associated with the certain marketing strategy which may either lead an organization toward rapid success or temporary downfall. One of the major advantages of comparative advertising is the management of the organization will be able to increase its brand value by leveraging certain shortcomings of the competitors.
Moreover, it is considered that comparative advertising has been used in several countries and also considered to be more effective than non-comparative advertising for certain factors such as claim acceptance and consumer perception (Phung, 2019). On the other hand, it may be argued that brand value of any company may fall down in case the particular ad is perceived poorly by all the prospective international stakeholders. In addition to that, the management of the company may also face legal consequences if the management of any particular company goes too far with comparative advertising. Along with that, it may be mentioned that comparative advertising mainly consists of two factors such as direct comparative advertising and indirect comparative advertising which certainly lead a company towards gaining a huge market share through international marketing communication. Comparative advertising in international marketing communication may be used through several significant ways such as TV ads, printing media ads as well as ads on certain social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram as well as YouTube. However, it may be stated that comparative advertising for goods as well as services is primarily based on certain comparisons of extrinsic as well as intrinsic product attributes which in turn lead an organization towards much awaited success (Bambauer et al., 2018).
Comparative advertising also provides a huge amount of competitive advantage to certain companies in the international market if the particular advertising is conducted properly as it will attract a huge base of prospective stakeholders. Furthermore, it may be mentioned that one of the prominent examples of direct comparative advertising is certainly the Apple vs. Microsoft campaign which took place in the year of 2006. In the year of 2006 one of the well known companies namely Apple has laid out a particular campaign involving more than 60 ads which in turn led Apple towards gaining a huge customer base (Apple. 2021). Apart from that, it may be mentioned that in one of those commercials the management of Apple has engaged in dragging comparison regarding a crucial factor that PCs are vulnerable towards virus while Macs are significantly immune to virus. In addition, the management of Apple with the help of comparative advertising in international marketing communication has certainly aimed at making all the consumers perceive something out of the box to promote its products. Furthermore, through direct comparative advertising which significantly involved over 60 plus ads or commercials the management of the company has been able to put forth certain benefits that the advanced technologies had offered.
However, it may be argued that companies may face legal actions as in the scenario of direct advertising one company tries to leverage other competitors shortcomings or drawbacks which may in turn lead an organization which may in turn call for legal complication. Comparative advertising promotes certain products through pointing out certain drawbacks of the competitors although it may backfire in case the particular product is not differentiated adequately (Bostanci et al., 2019). On the other hand, it may be argued that indirect comparative advertising in the International marketing communication refers to certain type advertisements where the management of the company compares its products with every other competitor instead of comparing with a particular competitor. Moreover, one of the popular brands namely Dove has engaged in indirect comparative advertising in international marketing communication as the management of the company aimed to compare against all the competitors instead of competing against a particular rival (Dove-Brands, 2021). The management of the company has been able to add a good amount of reputation to the company through going after amalgam of nameless competitors. On a contradictory note, it may be argued that in case if the management of a company goes after a specific rival then there is a high probability that consumers may tend to perceive the marketing strategy as malicious.
Most of the firms engage in a price comparative advertising to gain a significant lead in the highly competitive market which will in turn lead the organization towards much awaited success (Baumann, 2017). Along with that, one of the huge advantages of indirect comparative advertising is that the management of certain companies will not have to go through any legal complications or an action as the management does not focus on a specific competitor. In international marketing communication few prominent ways to conduct indirect marketing are giving ads on magazines, newspapers as well as television. However, conducting comparative indirect advertising on the online platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram have turned out to be malicious as a huge number of companies are engaging in improper comparisons in order to expand its market share on an international platform. Therefore, a huge base of customers have fallen victim to comparative advertising of sham products which in turn led well known as well as verified companies to witness temporary downfall in the business. Furthermore, comparative advertising may in turn make a negative impact in a huge way if a false as well as misleading statement that deceived a significant base of customers then it may prompt all the prospective stakeholders to engage in seeking legal resources.
Furthermore, comparative advertising is divided into two prominent factors such as superiority claims and parity claims and in case of superiority claims one company resorts to asserting explicitly that certain products are superior to every other company in the marketplace. On the other hand, certain companies try to engage in comparing its particular products to a certain degree which is as good as the same type of products offered by the management of any other competitive company. Furthermore, it may be stated that Dove as well as Apple have engaged in superiority claims which certainly led towards gaining a huge market share on an international level. Therefore, comparative advertising is one of the significant strategies in international marketing communication though the Lanham Act 1946 has put forth some rules and regulations over the competitors during the comparative advertising (Legislation.gov.uk. 2021). Deception in material will in turn prompt the consumers to indulge in buying certain products which may not be useful and in that case the management of the company may be liable to certain legal actions. Furthermore, it may be stated that during international marketing communication through certain marketing strategies such as comparative advertising will in turn lead the organization towards internalization if all the procedures as well as rules and regulations are followed by the management properly.
However, it may be stated that indirect comparative advertising is widely used as a persuasion to convince people that the certain product of the company is the best product. On the other hand, around 60% of the comparative ads are direct while 40% of the comparative ads are indirect. Moreover, it needs to be stated that during comparative advertising all the consumers engage in two types of processing modes such as analytical mode and imaginary mode which may either hamper or enable the companies to gain a significant share of the international market. Along with that, in the scenario of imaginary mode, the management may need to enhance its brand position against the entire market and in the scenario of analytical mode, the management may need to enhance the brand position against a specific rival. Comparative advertising is the most useful when the top management of any company lay its extreme emphasis upon the meaningful and unassailable points of differences. On a contradictory note, it may be argued that rules and regulations regarding comparative advertising certainly vary from one country to another country and in certain scenarios few ads are not allowed in few countries.
Advertising is significantly old and has commerce as well as civilization and nowadays most of the businesses engage in attracting most of consumers through certain comparative advertising such as pamphlets, radio, brochures as well as TV communication during international marketing communication (Osama, 2021). Moreover, it may be mentioned that direct comparative marketing does not only rely on increasing the preference rating of the advertised brand along with it, it also relies upon the reducing the preference ratings of the competitive brands to gain a huge success. Therefore, it may be considered that tracking the effectiveness of the competitive brands as well as measuring certain beliefs as well as preferences of the competitive brands will provide a great lead in the competitive advertising during international marketing communication. On the other hand, a certain comparative advertising in international marketing communication may bridge the perceived distance between the advertising brand and other competitive brands though it may fail aver consumers’ attention from the competitive brand due to loyalty, beliefs and habits. It may also be implied that comparative brands again may be divided into two factors such as one sided comparative ads and two sided comparative ads in order to gain a huge amount of international market share.
Moreover, in case of one sided ads in international marketing communication the management only tries to put out its positive points to the international stakeholders while in two sided ads, along with positive points, the management also engages in admitting its certain shortcomings. Therefore, it may be considered that two sided ads turn out to be more credible among all the prospective customers who will in turn lead an organization towards much awaited success. Moreover, similar to comparative advertising, the consumer’s ethnocentrism is adversarial as ethnocentric customers primarily consider all the domestic products to be superior to all the competitive products which are being produced in other countries (Neese et al., 2019). Apart from that open-ended comparisons and close-ended comparisons are the two significant types of comparative advertising and in the scenario of open-ended comparisons, consumers are able to draw a significant conclusion regarding a particular brand. On the other hand, in the close-ended comparisons, the management of the advertising brand draws conclusions on its own which may not satisfy all the consumers in a huge way. However, most of the consumers are reluctant to draw certain conclusions on their own and in that case the management may need to resort to suggesting conclusions explicitly in order to gain all the international customers during international marketing communication.
Conclusion
Considering all the information mentioned above, it may be concluded that the management may resort to perform comparative advertising more often in international marketing communication in order to gain a huge market share on an international level. On the other hand, the management of any company will not be able to expand its international market and face certain legal actions if certain products are found to be of lower quality than what has been during the comparative advertising.
References
Apple (United Kingdom). 2021. Apple (United Kingdom). [online] Available at: <https://www.apple.com/uk/> [Accessed 23 April 2021].
Bambauer-Sachse, S. and Heinzle, P., 2018. Comparative advertising for goods versus services: Effects of different types of product attributes through consumer reactance and activation on consumer response. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 44, pp.82-90.
Baumann, S., 2017. Comparative Advertising: The role of prices.
Bostanci, G., Jerath, K. and Yildirim, P., 2019. Comparative Advertising and Product Positioning. under review at Quantitative Marketing and Economics.
Dove-Brands. 2021 [online] Unilever global company website. Available at: <https://www.unilever.com/brands/personal-care/dove.html> [Accessed 23 April 2021].
Legislation.gov.uk. 2021. Legislation.gov.uk. [online] Available at: <https://www.legislation.gov.uk/> [Accessed 23 April 2021].
Neese, W.T., Foxx, W. and Eppler, D.B., 2019. The effectiveness of comparative advertising in the US automobile market influenced by consumer ethnocentrism, industry-specific personal characteristics, and foreign versus domestic brand ownership. Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, 29(1), pp.114-128.
Osama Mohamed Abdelaziz, A., 2021. Comparative Advertising as a Competitive Tool for Advertising Institutions. Journal of Intellectual Property and Innovation Management, 2(2), pp.98-130.
Phung, N.P., 2019. Comparative Advertising-a deadly marketing tactic in the competition.
