Advertising World‐wide: Advertising Conditions in Selected Countries

Citation

John, J. (2002), "Advertising World‐wide: Advertising Conditions in Selected Countries", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 277-278. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2002.19.3.277.1

Which are the top advertising agencies in Australia? Which firms are the top advertisers in Finland? What are the sector‐by‐sector advertising expenditures in France or Japan? How is Russian advertising evolving in the post‐Soviet era? What are the main advertising regulations in Taiwan? If you want to find out the answers to these questions without a lot of effort, pick up a copy of Advertising World‐wide.

Ingomar Kloss, a Professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Stralsund, Germany, gathered 12 experts in advertising in 11 different countries to write about the advertising conditions in their respective countries. These countries are: Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, and the USA. A notable exception is any country from South America. All except two of the contributors are academics in the advertising, marketing or political science faculty in a university.

Dr Kloss reveals in her Preface that during a sabbatical she was to research advertising conditions in different countries. Finding it difficult to get even baseline information on advertising in different countries from a single source, she embarked on the project of constructing this reader for international marketing students, international advertisers and advertising agencies.

Since all of the chapters provide the same basic types of information, such as top advertisers, advertising agencies, spending in various media, etc., I will not repeat these commonalities and will instead simply point out the distinctive features in each chapter.

The first chapter in the book is an overview of the world‐wide advertising landscape written by Marieke de Mooij, an accomplished advertising expert based in The Netherlands. This chapter covers some top‐level statistics on world‐wide advertising and provides a primer on cultural differences as they pertain to advertising in different cultures. She covers cultural value orientation research as national culture based on Hofstede’s work and communication in high‐ and low‐context cultures as in Hall’s framework.

The second chapter is on advertising in Australia and is written by Paul Gaskin, an advertising consultant. Among some useful information on advertising in that country, Mr Gaskin presents some interesting statistics, such as the top 15 television programs and the top 25 Internet sites visited by Australian computer users.

Advertising in Belgium, by Prof De Pelsmacker at the University of Antwerp, is the third chapter. Dr De Pelsmacker provides a sociodemographic profile of different types of media, a list of the main professional organizations involved with advertising, and the advertising awards presented in Belgium. The author also presents some of his research findings on consumer opinion of the various media as advertising channels in Belgium.

The fourth chapter is on advertising in Finland by Marja‐Liisa Kinturi, a free‐lance journalist, and Professor Lusa Uusitalo at the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration. These authors even provide some data on market research firms in Finland and a list of some useful addresses of advertising‐related professional associations in Finland.

The fifth chapter is on advertising in France by Professor Caumont at the Institut Commercial de Nancy. This author does a very nice job of presenting a lot of regulatory information on marketing and advertising in France.

The editor himself authored the sixth chapter on advertising in Germany. This is probably the most complete of all the chapters on individual countries. Several examples of advertisements in Germany are reproduced in the chapter.

Professor Srinivasan of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore covers advertising in India in the seventh chapter. He does a pretty good job of covering newspaper advertising in the different languages in India, avoiding the bias toward English or Hindi, the national language.

The eighth chapter is on advertising in Japan, contributed by Professor Abe of the University of Tokyo. He presents the idiosyncrasies and special cultural contexts of Japanese advertising and a useful list of regulatory and professional agencies related to advertising in Japan.

Professor Tretyak of Moscow State University covers advertising in Russia in the ninth chapter. She provides a comprehensive look at the advertising industry in post‐Soviet Russia. This is a really well done chapter!

The tenth chapter is on advertising in South Africa by Professor Hugo‐Burrows of the University of Stellenbosch. She presents some guidance on the issue of race and communication in multi‐cultural South Africa in a well‐referenced chapter.

The 11th chapter, contributed by Professor Liu of the National Uchengchi University, is on advertising in Taiwan. She presents some census information, a chronicle of 1990s advertising in Taiwan, information on laws and regulations, and some useful media addresses for her country.

The final chapter on advertising in the USA is by Professor Miller at Indiana University. He presents a rather brief chapter with some information on the laws and regulations in US advertising.

Overall, this book is a very handy reference for advertisers and advertising agencies. Students of advertising and marketing would find this a useful resource for some basic country‐specific information, and especially for a comparative view of advertising across the world. The chapters are about 30 pages in length and are a very easy read. The editor and the authors have done a very commendable job in presenting some basic and useful information on advertising in the 11 countries.