Standardisation versus cultural adaptation in food advertising: insights from a two-culture market

Abstract

This article unravels principles of standardisation and cultural adaptation from past literature and empirically tests the applicability of these guidelines to food advertising, in a context in which two cultures, both with strong cultural differences with regard to food, are geographically integrated and share a common industry and market structure, thereby controlling for market and industry structure confounding factors. The study was conducted in the Montreal (Canada) area, comparing food TV ads targeted to two cultural groups—the French and the English Canadians. A total of 123 standardised ads are compared to 182 culture-specific ads (92 French and 90 English). Elements of advertising that are found amenable to standardisation pertain to product information and appeals based on basic positive emotions. Conversely, social and symbolical appeals, as well as appeals based on social emotions, present cultural specificity. Cross-cultural differences are found in culture-specific advertisements in the higher-order benefits associated with food (i.e. health for the English and pleasure for the French). Both benefits reflect global consumer trends and they are as frequently found in standardised ads as they are in corresponding culture-specific advertisements.