Abstract:

A great deal has been written about the challenge of trying to "globalise" advertising in terms of its impact on consumers in different cultures and different parts of the world. More recently, the ability to reach consumers in fifty countries at once by satellite or computer has opened up amazing media possibilities. Less publicity is given, at least in research circles, to the practical barriers which inhibit multi-country advertising and other forms of commercial communication. In considering the global picture, we tend to forget that Europe - arguably the most complex conglomerate of nations ever to try to unite together - faces a communication problem more challenging both practically and psychologically, after a thousand years of different languages, customs and laws, than many of the new ideas whose challenges are mainly technical.