Mindful International Advertising

When a movie ad that was crafted in the domestic market is extended to foreign markets, these audiences are likely to interpret the ad differently than the audience in the domestic market. The cultural variance in audience interpretation limits the ad’s persuasive power in foreign markets. Mindful advertising approaches, which segment cultural markets, use new information about foreign markets and recognize local audiences’ alternative perspectives, minimize the interpretative variability between advertisers at the studios and audiences from different cultures. Based on this premise, this study examines the mindfulness of the Hollywood major studios’ advertising campaigns. Patrick Chab analyzes the appeal and execution of American, British, French, and German print advertising campaigns for Hollywood films and classifies these campaigns into five different advertising approaches with various degrees of mindfulness. He also examines the potential effectiveness of mindful over mindless strategies and offers managerial recommendations on how to improve the overall effectiveness of advertising strategy and, in turn, box office profitability in foreign markets.