![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldOver at the BBC, journalist Peter Day examined how advertisers in Germany had to tailor their television advertisements--and doubtless, advertisements in other media--for different markets in German-speaking Europe.
This isn't particularly surprising, or new: The differences between Francophone Europe and Francophone Canada, say, or Australia and the United States, or Mexico and Spain, are well-known. Is Day correct in arguing that Persil's new regionalized approaches to advertising will augur a new era of more precisely targeted advertising? Doubtless. The only question is how precisely ad agencies will be able to target their potential markets.
Persil's the current advertising stressed its pre-eminence as the whitest wash in the world.
"East German housewives don't want that," said Mr Mackat. "They just want decently clean clothes."
The pan-German Persil ads showed a German hausfrau at work, beautifully turned out and glowing with health.
In the background was her spacious home, shining with the latest gadgets.
"East German women can't identify with that sort of thing," said Fritzsch and Mackat.
They took the hausfrau and the bungalow out of the ads, and toned down the world beating claims.
The ad they unveiled for the Ossies said something modest such as "Best for coloureds". And it worked.
And not just in Eastern Germany. A day after it aired for the first time, the phone rang.
It was the Austrians, long included in the catch-all German advertising,.
"We've had to endure these West German ads for years," they said. "We want yours," they told the East German advertising pioneers.
This isn't particularly surprising, or new: The differences between Francophone Europe and Francophone Canada, say, or Australia and the United States, or Mexico and Spain, are well-known. Is Day correct in arguing that Persil's new regionalized approaches to advertising will augur a new era of more precisely targeted advertising? Doubtless. The only question is how precisely ad agencies will be able to target their potential markets.
