The Global Implications of Regional Advertising
January 21st, 2010 by John RheaBy now you’ve probably gotten wind of the KFC ad heard round the world (embedded below). If not the Guardian has a pretty good write up on the facts of the case.
Let me quickly sidestep the racism issue and allow you to make your own decision.
This ad was only meant to run in a specific locality. So the creators theoretically only needed to hold it up against a certain set of social norms and mores within the Australian/New Zealand area. But the ad inevitably found its way to YouTube. Americans with their own set of social norms and mores took one look at the ad and cried fowl (sorry, I had to).
Although we Americans are accustomed to exporting our culture, we rarely see someone else’s culture exported to us, particularly not one that, on the surface, seems so similar even if it is deeply different. The Australian arm of KFC ended up pulling the ads due to the American fury, not Australian. In fact many Australians attempted to defend the ad as light hearted and sports team related. They explained that the stereotypes Americans saw furthered in the ad don’t exist in Australia. Australians also seemed less than happy that Americans could so easily push their own agenda, even through chicken.
There are two major takeaways from this
1. Any ad, no matter how regionally focused, can become global on the Internet. Either putting your brand on the defensive in all parts of the world for serious allegations perhaps unrelated to the ad’s intent, or, when done correctly, can spread your brand’s greatness to the ends of the Earth.
2. Americans (and people in general) attempt to put every piece of marketing into their own context i.e. the audience brings something to the ad, whether it’s knowledge of the predominant teams in a particular sport or several hundred years of oppressive stereotypes.
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