First Impressions of IMC in Germany.

Description:
To the left is an image of a Dunkin Donuts print advertisement outside its store. As you can see the colors and logo are identical to those in the states. Even the font used is the same as the Dunkin Donut advertisements from the U.S. In the States Dunkin Donuts often uses free standing displays to advertise as seen here.

Analysis:
Initially, I figured that IMC campaigns would differ here in Germany, obviously not the logos, but perhaps the execution. While I have seen adverts that would never be allowed in the U.S., most advertisements are exactly like the ones in the U.S., only in German. Coming from an International advertising sales background, this still surprises me slightly. Most large companies have agencies in different parts of the world that decide where and how to advertise, but it seems that most large corporations only use one creative agency and a translator.
Now, my question is this. There are so many options for an integrated marketing campaign, so how does each agency do its choosing. While selling advertising space in newspapers and magazines abroad, I do know that price was a large portion of the decisions. However, do the international agencies discuss with one another exactly what they want to buy and where to place the ads? Or perhaps each agency makes its own decisions.
From classes, I have learned that not all advertisements work in different countries; therefore, one would think that occasionally corporations need to change their colors or wording or something in their advert. But, walking around Germany for the last few days has shown me this isn’t the case for most of them. Perhaps creative agencies are making conscious efforts to create ads and logos that can work in majority of countries or on any type of vehicle.
The international aspect of placing advertising fascinates me. There are so many countries to chose from, so how does one exactly make those decisions. I assume it depends on the product and what demographic a company is trying to target, but there has to be some kind of guessing involved even if a plan book is made and research done. I would think it was obvious that if a store of that company is in a certain city they advertise in it, but nowadays with the internet a company can advertise anywhere because consumers can purchase items online. Even Dunkin Donuts from the photo has a shop online in order for people to have the opportunity to buy it’s coffee.
Let’s move on to discuss two of four p’s in the marketing mix. First, we begin with price. As you can see from the advertisement a box of 6 donuts in this particular store is 5.49 Euros. From frequently buying donuts in Miami, I know that a box of 6 donuts in the U.S. is approximately 4.00 dollars. We see that the price in Europe is more expensive. What kind of research did the company do to figure out that they could get away with selling 6 donuts at a higher price in Berlin? I mean, it’s amazing. So now, product, Dunkin Donuts will obviously sell donuts. From this picture I can tell that they sell the same types of donuts as well. They have the chocolate covered ones with sprinkles that are my favorite. So I assume that they tried out their staples from the U.S. here in Germany and they worked. Maybe the bratwurst donut didn’t go over so well.
In conclusion, I think it would be a great research project to work on something regarding decisions made for international advertising as a whole. How companies choose what and how to advertise in different countries around the world. I am impressed by how Dunkin Donuts has continued to use its logo, colors and advertisements in Berlin and that it works! Well, the only research I have done to see if it is actually working is to notice that I have seen atleast 5 different Dunkin Donuts' since I have been here.