LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Hae-Kyong Bang Villanova University, USA P. Greg Bonner Villanova University, USA Les Carlson Clemson University, USA Albert Caruana University of Malta, Msida, Malta Aruna Chandra Indiana State University, USA Patrick De Pelsmacker Universiteit Antwerpen Management School and Ghent University, Belgium Kanwalrooop Kathy Dhanda University of Portland, USA Michael Dolezal Masaryk University, Czech Republic Michael .T Ewing Monash University, Australia Maggie Geuens Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and Ghent University, Belgium David A. Griffith University of Hawaii, USA Ronald Paul Hill University of Portland, USA Cameron James Hughes Millward Brown International, United Kingdom Chad M. Johnson Villanova University, USA Dimitri Kapelianis Arizona State University, USA xi LIST OF SROTUBIRTNOC X Stephen Keysuk Kim Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA Wei-Na Lee The University of Texas at Austin, USA Jong noW Lim Seoul National University, South Korea Dominika Maison University of Warsaw, Poland Gordon .E Miracle Michigan State University, USA Changho hO Hanshin University, Osan, South Korea Sak Onkvisit San Jose University, USA Michael Jay Polonsky Victoria University, Australia Andrea Prothero University College Dublin, Ireland Mary Anne Raymond Clemson University, USA John .K Ryans, Jr. Kent State University, USA Trina Sego Bosie State University, USA John J. Shaw Providence College, USA Charles .R Taylor Villanova University, USA Andy Teo PSB Corporation, Singapore Fei Xue University of Alabama, USA TaiWoong nuY The University of Texas at Austin, USA Shuhua Zhou University of Alabama, USA Peiqin Zhou University of Alabama, USA PREFACE This special volume of Advances in International Marketing is devoted to exploring new perspectives on international advertising - a generally under- researched area. It is guest edited by Charles R. Taylor of Villanova University. The idea for devoting a separate volume on international advertising came from Professor Taylor. He issued a call for papers, which then attracted a variety of submissions of high quality. We owe gratitude to him for screening and evaluating these submissions, and for preparing the final set of chapters. We are also indebted to many colleagues who assisted in the review process. The resulting selections draw from a variety of perspectives and offer rich insights on international advertising issues. Our thanks to Dr. Taylor for his efforts in creating this volume. Finally, we express our appreciation to Ms. Alison Evans and other staff at JAI/Elsevier Science who saw the volume through the production process. S. Tamer Cavusgil Series Editor xi INTRODUCTION- NEW DIRECTIONS IN INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING RESEARCH Charles R. Taylor International advertising is an area in need of more quality research. While this need is somewhat surprising given the large amount of attention focused on advertising in many parts of the world, one needs only to look at chapters on international advertising in International Marketing or Advertising textbooks to see the problem. In comparison to well-researched areas such as foreign market entry modes, country of origin perceptions of products, pricing strategies, and global branding strategies, there is far too little that is managerially actionable in international advertising discussions. Too often, we are left to give our advertising students vague advice, such as "you need to search for multi~market target audience similarities," in spite of not knowing a lot about how it can be done due to a paucity of research. Another example of a failure to deliver value to managers, (and our students), stems from being preoccupied with the "debate" over standardization vs. special- ization. Too often, the discussion is positioned as a controversy rather than providing managers with specific advice on how to deal with the decision. We also know too little about setting advertising budgets and measuring advertising effectiveness in foreign markets. Research focusing on allowing us a better understanding of the impact of culture on advertising effectiveness and on client-agency relationships is also urgently needed. While the work of early international advertising scholars such as Gordon Miracle and John Ryans, who are among the contributors to this volume, did an excellent job of setting the New Directions in International Advertising Research, Volume ,21 pages 1-5. Copyright © 2002 by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 0-7623-0950-4 2 CHARLES R. TAYLOR stage for additional research, too often we have fallen short. Some recent key studies suggest promising things are ahead, but more is needed. There are some understandable reasons why international advertising research has not advanced as far as it might. As noted by Zinkhan (1994), it is simply more difficult to collect data from multiple countries. Taking on multiple co-authors is not viewed as desirable at many universities though it may often be necessary in a large international study. Another issue related to the diffi- culty of collecting data in multiple markets is that a disproportionately high number of content analyses have been published, perhaps to the neglect of other research techniques such as surveys and experiments. It will be especially important for researchers of the future to build on descriptive research with experiments that focus more on the underlying reasons why various executional techniques are effective in a market as opposed to simply describing the existing content of ads. Another issue facing international advertising researchers is that elite journals frequently frown on studies from countries other than the United States that do not collect comparable data from the U.S. Even when the U.S. is included, the second country in a study had better be of interest to the "general readership" of the journal if the author hopes to publish it. An additional problem for researchers is that studying multiple countries adds noise to data sets, yet international studies are held to the same reliability levels as domestic studies. Collectively, all of these problems associated with conducting research in international advertising have led to a situation where we have only a very limited number of scholars pursuing programmatic research, and even fewer who have been able to publish their work in the top journals in the field. While the above problems do, indeed, make it difficult to conduct interna- tional advertising research they are not insurmountable, as illustrated by the articles in this volume. Several different methodologies, including experiments, surveys, qualitative research, and content analysis are used in the papers offered here. Moreover, the studies are conducted in several countries from various parts of the world and several delve into neglected areas of inquiry. The opening section provides some guidance in terms of implementing procedures to ensure that survey data compared in multiple countries is equivalent. The two articles in the Methodological Advances section build on prior work on ensuring that equivalent data are being compared in cross-cultural studies. In the first article, Miracle and Bang discuss procedures for making sure equivalent measurement instruments are produced prior to data collection, including guidelines for effective translations and procedures for training coders when content analysis is used. In the second article, Ewing, Caruana, and Teo build on Steenkamp and Baumgartners's (1998) analytical procedures for Introduction 3 assessing whether data are equivalent by developing the eric Multicultural Advertising Response Scale (MARS). Collectively, these studies demonstrate how it is now possible for researchers to eliminate much of the noise in cross- national research. Employing the types of procedures illustrated in these studies, both before and after the data is collected, will enhance the chances of an international advertising study being accepted in high-level journals. The second section of the volume is titled "Standardization vs. Specialization Issues." These studies examine the advances that have been made in recent adver- tising research on standardization and reflect the need to see the issue from a managerial perspective, as opposed to becoming preoccupied with the "debate." In a review of the literature on standardization vs. specialization in the 1990s, Taylor and Johnson stress the growing consensus that brand positioning or the main selling message can often be standardized while individual country execu- tions must be carefully analyzed when making a decision whether to standardize. Thus, at a general level, the decision to standardize should become a matter of "what"and "how," as opposed to whether. The authors also call for more research on the client-agency relationship vis-a-vis standardization and on inter-market segmentation. The second article in this section, by Chandra, Griffith, and Ryans, investigates the relationship of process standardization to program standardization using results from a survey of U.S. multinationals operating in India. This study provides an excellent country-specific example of the level of analysis recom- mended by Taylor and Johnson for determining whether specific programs (or executions) can be standardized. The third contribution to this section is a fascinating piece by Onkvisit and Shaw in which the universality of theories and concepts contained in U.S. textbooks is examined and questioned. As textbook authors, their call for more research evaluating and replicating advertising concepts in other cultural contexts should be taken especially seriously, as they have first hand the need to summarize the state of knowledge on international advertising. In the final article in this section, Raymond and Lim provide a detailed case study that, again, illustrates the level of depth of analysis needed in making the decision of what can be standardized. Their case study of Hyundai's Santa Fe SUV shows how country of origin effects and other factors need to be considered in deciding whether adaptation is necessary. The third section of the volume is entitled "Advertising in Central/Eastern Europe." The two articles here focus on two transitional economies, Poland and the Czech Republic, that have seen substantial growth in advertising over the past decade. De Pelsmacker, Maison, and Geuens conduct an experiment which examines how emotional vs. rational advertising appeals work in positive versus negative media contexts. Experimental studies of this type are too rare 4 CHARLES R. TAYLOR in advertising research in general, but especially in transitional economies. The second article, by Taylor, Bonner, and Dolezal provides evidence on two issues. First, it reports on a survey of Czech perception of advertising clutter in various media. Second, it analyzes Czech consumers' perceptions of what types of advertising executions are effective, using data from both a survey and personal interviews. The fourth section is rifled, "Global Advertising, Social Responsibility, and Country of Origin Effects." Polonsky, Carlson, Prothero and Kapelianis start the section off with a study of environmental information contained on packaging in four countries - Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. Using a new methodology in which judges in each country determine the categories for coding as well as performing the actual coding, the study finds that some types of information not traditionally classified as environmental were identified. The authors also provide implications for advertisers. The next study, authored by Hill and Dhanda, analyzes secondary data in order to assess the impact of differential access to the internet on the ability to promote goods and services worldwide. Macro-level implications for advertisers are provided. The final paper in this section, by Yun, Lee, and Sego, conducts an experiment in which the impact of hybrid vs. non-hybrid country of origin effects on response to an ad are analyzed. The study, conducted over the Intemet, also examines the effect of indirect foreign language cues in the form of foreign language slogans. Advertising in Asia Pacific is the title of the final section of the volume. Oh and Kim lead off the section with a study of how power impacts on client- agency relationships. Drawing on theory that is often applied in a channels context but seldom in an ad agency context, they find that differential power between clients and agencies can actually play a constructive role. The second paper, by Zhou, Xue, and Zhou, examines advertising and its relationship with materialism, self-esteem and life-satisfaction. Their results, from a student sample, clearly demonstrate that Chinese students are optimistic in terms of their future and that the relationship between the tested variables is complex. In the final paper, Hughes and Polonsky compare the information content in the advertising of Australian, Japanese, and U.S. MNEs in Australia. Their findings suggest that Japanese and U.S. firms use different levels of information in Australia than they do in their home markets. Collectively, these studies provide a basis on which to build new directions in advertising research, or to continue to build on existing trends in areas in need of research. I would like to thank S. Tamer Cavusgil, the Series Editor, for his encouragement and for the opportunity to edit this issue, and Kathy Waldie of Michigan State University for her support throughout the process. Introduction 5 Special thanks are also due to Alison Evans of Elsevier who served as Administrative Editor of the Volume and Kyong Ryul (Kevin) Koo, my graduate assistant at Villanova University who worked hard on this project. Finally, I very much thank the Editorial Board members who reviewed the papers for this issue, thereby ensuring its quality. REFERENCES ,pmakneetS .J .E ,.M & ,rentragmuaB .H (1998). Assessing tnemerusaem equivalence ni cross- lanoitan consumer .hcraeser Journal of Consumer Research, 25(3), 78-90. ,nahkniZ .G .M .)4991( lanoitanretnI :gnisitrevda A hcraeser agenda. Journal of Advertising, ,)1(32 .51-11 ACHIEVING RELIABLE AND VALID CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH RESULTS IN CONTENT ANALYSIS Gordon .E Miracle and Hae-Kyong Bang ABSTRACT Cross-cultural research presents unique challenges due to language and cultural differences. Based on a large-scale research project involving tele- vision advertisements from Japan, Korea, and the U.S., the article identifies a number of problems encountered in developing equivalent research instruments in, and discusses ways to achieve reliable and valid results in cross-cultural content analysis research. The importance of understanding the languages and culture, selecting, training and supervising coders in a consistent manner and the practical value of back-translation process in cross-cultural research in achieving reliable and valid research results are emphasized. Specific guidelines for ensuring equivalent research instru- ments are provided. INTRODUCTION Many products and services are produced in one country and sold in distant and culturally different markets. Often international marketers depend mainly on judgment to adjust advertising for differences in foreign markets. Some even New Directions in International Advertising Research, Volume 12, pages 9-23. Copyright © 2002 by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 0-7623.0950-4