Global Advertising, Local Testing

The Ad Contrarian has spent the last couple days railing about the laziness of the big global shops. His point is that local audiences are unique, not global, and advertising is more effective when it recognizes that. While transposing global messages is cheap, more business opportunities can be leveraged by addressing the unique qualities of locality.

I was taught that advertising was about showing consumers a need. For example, people with teeth can benefit by cleaning them with toothpaste. So does that mean we can leverage business opportunities by localizing the message? Calgarians who have ‘Stampede Breath’, should use Colgate toothpaste. That’s glib, but there’s a whole range of product and service categories that don’t offer up much opportunities for leveraging with local spin.

To prove his point, The Ad Contrarian mentioned Pepsi’s advertising in Quebec, which, according to the New York Times is one of the only markets in the world where Pepsi outsells Coke. As a Canadian, it’s hard to dispute that Quebec is unique. Tell a Quebecer he’s not and you’ll likely end up with a oeil noir. So it’s not much of surprise the Association of Quebec Advertising Agencies (AAPQ) is launching the Yul-Lab - an advertising test-bed that leverages Montreal’s unique media opportunities. Strategy Magazine writes “that Quebec, and Montreal specifically, are isolated from the rest of North America. All of this making it the perfect place to experiment new communications solutions, such as finding the right media mix.”

So if the Ad Contrarian is right, how successful is Yul-Lab test-bed likely to be? Testing the media mix is one thing, but how well are messages adapted from global campaigns likely to be in a place as unique and insular as Quebec? And if they test well in that audience how well will they translate back to global audiences?