Cross-Cultural Advertising

Introduction
IKEA's advertising strategy can be analyzed from a cross-cultural point of view. This approach gives the possibility to understand how cultural differences may affect the advertising strategy of this multi-national company.

IKEA, founded in Sweden in 1943 by Igvar Kamprad, is the home furniture retailer operating in 49 countries with 403 stores (August 2017). The company is one of the most successful for its ability to localize its global target market and create advertising campaigns that vary significantly across territories.

Its goal is to show that comfortable and functional design doesn’t have to be expensive and everyone can afford a nice interior. In order to communicate it, IKEA uses a well-prepared advertising strategy.

IKEA general advertising strategy
IKEA employs a soft sell advertising strategy that tries to appeal to the customer’s emotions by communicating positive feelings and demonstrating how life can be easier with IKEA products. To pursue its goal, the company shows cheerful people of different ages, singles, young couples and families enjoying time together in pleasant and cozy homes. IKEA advertisement approach consists mostly of humor, scenes of real life and demonstration of how its products work.

To develop an effective and successful advertising strategy, a company can adopt two different approaches: standardization and adaptation.

Standardization is the “formulation, publication, and implementation of guidelines, rules, and specifications for common and repeated use, aimed at achieving optimum degree of order or uniformity in a given context, discipline, or field” (Business Dictionary). In the advertising context, standardization means to keep the same elements across advertisements in different countries irrespective of the cultures customers belong to.

Adaptation, instead, is defined as “modification of a concept or object to make it applicable in situations different from originally anticipated.” (Business Dictionary). In other words, in an increasingly global economic environment, international marketing crosses national boundaries through customized advertisements that show different features according to different countries.

These two approaches do not exclude each other. Rather, multinational companies, as IKEA, can integrate standardization with adaptation when crafting communication campaigns. The combination of the two approaches means to convey the same message and replicate the concept (standardization) while using different advertisement structures that are based on the country cultural origins and habits (adaptation).

In conclusion, IKEA operates a standardized concept but, at the same time, tries to customize and adapt its advertisements to the local cultures of its customers by referring to their values and shared beliefs.

Cultural dimensions and other factors
A cross cultural analysis is fundamental to devise a successful integrated advertising strategy that reflects the cultural values and behaviours of its targeted audience. By recognizing cross cultural differences or similarities among countries, advertisers can understand which aspects are shared worldwide and diversify the elements that need to be adapted to local cultures.

Cultural dimensions and other perceivable factors (such as stereotypes and habits) play an important role in the identification of differences among countries.

An important contribution to these studies is given by Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, that are globally recognized and are reflected in every aspect of life. These cultural dimensions are: In addition to these dimensions, other factors (habits, traditions, customs …)  can be identified and used when customizing and tailoring advertisements. On the basis of these factors, which are specific for each culture, stereotypes are usually created to catch the audience attention by connecting a specific meaning to some characteristics of the advertised product.
 * Individualism - collectivism
 * Power distance
 * Masculinity - femininity
 * The uncertainty avoidance
 * Long- and short - term orientation
 * Indulgence vs restraint

Stereotype is “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing” (Oxford Dictionary). The use of stereotypes in advertisements is justified by the advertisers’ intent to make their products and brands easily and sometimes even unconsciously identifiable in the mind of consumers. Stereotypes can be used intentionally to show a product as appealing to their desired target market or unintentionally to enrich the ad with humor. Generally, stereotypes can be race-, gender-, income, social status, or age-based.

Case 1: bathroom print ads (2012 IKEA catalogue)
These two advertisements are taken from IKEA catalogue of 2012: the left one was released in Sweden, while the right one in Saudi Arabia. Both photos show an ordinary moment for families, in which parents are in the bathroom taking care of their children. The two print ads are totally equal, except for the presence of the woman who was removed from the whole Arabic catalogue. This decision created some problems that IKEA had to apologize on its official website. Although it is very usual that Islamic women in Saudi Arabia need to ask permission from their husbands to work, study or even drive a car, the government does not officially prohibit women appearance in advertisements. Based on this assumption, is the woman absence due to the fact that Islamic women cannot be represented in a private context without wearing the abaya and head scarf? The answer remains open.

Nevertheless, a possible explanation could be given through the Hofstede’s cultural dimension of power distance. Power distance can be defined as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally”.

In Saudi Arabia power distance is very high, so people accept a hierarchical order in all the aspects of society. Instead, in Sweden power distance is lower, so hierarchy is used only for convenience (such as in the business world) and people are consequently seen with equal rights.

The difference between these two countries, based on Hofstede’s dimension, can justify the commonplaces linked to Saudis and Swedish societies as masculinist and feminist respectively (different from masculinity and femininity dimension): in this regard, masculinist means an advocate of male superiority and dominance whereas feminist stands for political, economic and social equality of sexes.

Women in the first masculinist country are perceived as submissive and isolated while in the second feminist country they are considered as independent and powerful. This is represented in these two advertisements through the presence and the absence of the woman.

Case 2: kitchen print ads (2017 IKEA catalogue)
These photos are collected from IKEA US catalogue of 2017 on the left side, and from Chinese one on the right side. Both show the same model in the same pose, but the kitchen is manipulated to look much larger in US catalogue than in Chinese one. In fact, kitchens in the US in general are larger than those in China.

This choice may reflect IKEA’s willingness to adapt the advertisement to the lifestyle of countries. Usually, lifestyle ads express the idea that if consumers’ life fits the one shown in the advertisements, then the promoted product is suitable for them.

Moreover, the different representation of the kitchen in the ads mirrors the value system of the two countries according to the Hofstede’s dimension of masculinity and femininity.

Masculine society is a community where the dominant values are related to what are traditionally considered male attitudes: competition, achievement, success, assertiveness, and material rewards, both in private and working life. On the contrary, a feminine society emphasizes values such as cooperation, modesty, caring for others and quality of life.

Even if both societies are masculine, the index of masculinity in the Chinese one is higher. That means that many Chinese will sacrifice family and leisure to achieve success at work. American people, on the other side, look for success not only at work but also in private life. As a result, the kitchen, being the symbol of sharing time with family and friends, is bigger in US catalogue because it is meant to host many people and to nurture moments of pleasure and intimacy.

Case 3: kitchen commercials (2012 "Dream kitchen" campaign)
In this section, two commercials of the IKEA “dream kitchen” campaign will be analyzed. The concept of the two ads is the same -the dream- but it differs in showing the stereotypes related to each country and the role of women respectively.

The advertisement released in Italy in 2012 shows a typical Italian mom who takes care of her family, children and home when suddenly the husband irrupts into the kitchen with his friends playing rugby. Only at the end of the commercial, the viewers will find out that the scene is based on the very own dreams of each partner in front of an IKEA kitchen. The stereotype embedded in the video is that of ‘Italianicity’ consisting in the representation of a classical Italian family, the image of the mothering woman and the man who is passionated for sport.

The American commercial released in 2012 features an Asian-american couple, in an IKEA store,  who is imagining their dream kitchen. The wife dreams of an elegant party room where her friends can enjoy each other and great food served by her husband. The man imagines a much more relaxed kitchen only for themselves. Together they agree on something that suits both of them: namely preparing together a dinner for their friends. The commercial fits a well-known pattern: the fact that Asian Americans in advertising are typically presented as knowledgeable, competent and technological experts. They are most often shown in ads for business-oriented or technical products. In this case, the choice of Asian-American couple may reflect the stereotype of this cultural subgroup who is more oriented to technology and efficiency.

By the over mentioned comparison of the two advertisements, it seems evident that  women and men have different roles in the two commercials. Yet, this difference in roles can also be explained by considering that the two commercials actually address different targets: a big family with kids for the Italian case and only a couple for the American one.