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ACCA Applied Knowledge · Business and Technology · Social and demographic factors

A multinational using a single global advertising campaign finds it causes offence in one country because a symbol used has a negative meaning there. Which approach would have BEST reduced this risk?

Cultural research followed by local adaptation would best have reduced the risk. The offence came from a symbol meaning different things in different cultures, which local knowledge would have revealed. Greater standardisation or a bigger budget would not remove the problem and could magnify it.

  1. AStandardising the campaign further to keep the brand message consistent
  2. BCarrying out cultural research and adapting the campaign for local marketsCorrect
  3. CIncreasing the advertising budget so the message reaches more people

Explanation

The problem arose from differences in the meaning of symbols between cultures. Local cultural research allows the message to be adapted before launch. More standardisation would worsen the risk, and a larger budget only spreads the offensive message more widely.

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