The Media Landscape and the Influence of Cultures on Advertising in the United Kingdom


Academic Paper, 2019

47 Pages, Grade: 1,3

Anonymous


Excerpt


Table of Contents

1 Introduction

2 Media Survey in the United Kingdom
2.1 Population
2.2 GDP in the United Kingdom
2.3 Households in the United Kingdom
2.4 United Kingdom Media Usage Internet
2.5 United Kingdom Media Usage TV
2.6 United Kingdom Media Usage Radio
2.7 United Kingdom Media Usage Newspaper
2.8 United Kingdom Media usage Social Media

3 Hofstede’s culture model
3.1 The United Kingdom in Hofstede’s culture Model
3.1.1 United Kingdom – Power Distance
3.1.2 United Kingdom – Individualism
3.1.3 United Kingdom – Masculinity
3.1.4 United Kingdom - Uncertainty Avoidance
3.1.5 United Kingdom – Long Term Orientation
3.1.6 United Kingdom – Indulgence
3.2 United Kingdom – Summary
3.3 Hofstede’s findings in advertisement

4 Media Analysis
4.1 If London were Syria
4.2 Santander
4.3 Sexy Delights of Europe
4.4 On your Child’s Life
4.5 Co-op Easter egg advert
4.6 Dave’s Epic Strut / Bootylicious
4.7 Jaguar – A Breed Apart

5 Conclusion

6 References

7 Table of Figures

1 Introduction

International trade has always played an important role in the history of mankind. Starting with the connection of the East with the West through the Silk Road, through the increasing significance of specialization in the 19th century to today, which is characterized by the increase of international trade in a world that seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Since the system of capitalism is based to a not negligible extent on trade, i.e. the relationship between supply and demand, the distribution of products goes hand in hand with this trade. Since the distribution of products nowadays takes place in very many different countries with substantially different cultures, the importance of international marketing becomes more and more important.

Today, we are going through several major processes. Since the 1990s, the trend has been towards the progressive expansion of economic activities across national borders, leading to complex dependencies and a tremendous multinational market (Noack, 2007).

These can include political, ecological and cultural perspectives. Above all, however, the movement of capital and foreign trade is included, as is the movement of populations.

According to the World Trade Statistical Review 2017 of the WTO, the growth of global trade is much greater than the growth rate of global GDP and this trend is not new, it has existed for more than 10 years (World Trade Organisation, 2019). This also leads to an increasing importance of international marketing.

The term International Marketing itself is understood to mean the sales efforts in several countries at the same time. The greatest challenges lie in overcoming the differences in cultural, political, economic, social and technological frameworks. Whenever possible, companies try to develop a unified approach to be efficient. With a very high degree of probability, they must adapt to local conditions in order to remain successful (Noack, 2007).

Due to cultural differences, which vary greatly from country to country due to different historical development, the approaches taken by companies to be successful in a market are also very different. For example, a single word can illustrate a cultural difference. In the United Kingdom, the word "compromise" is associated with something positive, namely the agreement on a certain topic. in the United States, on the other hand, it is regarded as a solution in which the expectations of both sides are not satisfied (Center of Intercultural Competences, 2019).

The United Kingdom is a country full of variety, with which not just the British humor, the common courtesy or the horse races that are famous all over the world are meant. Experiencing the British monarchy live inspires a lot of people, just like the special cuisine we see it doing. The United Kingdom is also very diverse when it comes to the people who live throughout the country.

The population in the UK is made up by four different countries united under one monarch and government. Namely these countries are Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. Each country has its own culture and feeling, some in Northern Ireland want to separate from the UK and enter the Republic of Ireland, with which the UK shares its only territorial border.

Because England, with over 80 per cent of the population, accounted for most of the population within the United Kingdom, it has traditionally been the dominant nation, whereas Scottish Gaelic is spoken mainly in the northwest of the country by a small proportion of the population. Welsh has a much larger number of people who speak the language and all public signs in Wales are displayed in both Welsh and English (Expatica, 2019).

But not only the population is diverse. In today's world there is a remarkable rapid change in the media landscape due to the exponential improvement of our technology. This, of course, also affects the media around the world and therefore media use and the media landscape in the UK are also highly diversified.

Therefore, this paper deals with the current market situation in the United Kingdom and how much of an influence the changes in technology of the past years have had over the media landscape and how it is used by the current population.

In the late 1980s, Geert Hofstede investigated how culture and religion can influence people in their workplace. He published the results, which he sounded like, in a book, the models of which are still widely used in practice today due to their general validity. With the help of these models, this paper also attempts to convey how today's media use Hofstede's results for their own purposes, on the one hand to generate greater audience reach and on the other hand to attract attention to the products they sell.

2 Media Survey in the United Kingdom

The British media landscape is characterized by the biased mass circulation of the commercial national press and a BBC-led public broadcasting system. A clear distinction can also be made between a national quality and tabloid press and the systems governing the print and broadcasting media. Despite a strong press, due to the transition of many readers to digitally available news, the circulation of the printed national press has declined steadily.

Many older media companies have used the Internet to make their content accessible online via specific websites or portable apps. The online readership of some newspapers now far exceeds the printed audience, but newspapers are still struggling to find ways to make online readership more profitable. It seems that the national press has a relatively large influence on the public, especially at major events such as elections. This argument is supported by the infamous British tabloid headline "It's the Sun wot won it" the day after the unexpected election of a conservative government in 1992. Furthermore, the research provides convincing evidence that the broadcasting agenda is strongly influenced by the press agenda (Media Landscapes, 2019).

2.1 Population

Based on the latest United Nations estimates, the current population of the United Kingdom is 66,926,312, as measured on Saturday 1 June 2019. It is estimated, that considering the current growth of the population, in 2039 the growth will reach over 74 million. With this number, it reached the highest number of inhabitants in the United Kingdom ever.

There was a quite high growth in population during the baby boom in the 1969s, which slowed down in the 1970s but recovered in the 1980s when the baby boomers themselves began to become parents. The most recent growth in the number of populations in the United Kingdom has been coincided with the increasing number of countries joining the international association of the European Union. But further the elevation of the population can be related to the topic of the net migration, which was responsible for an average increase by more than 251.000 people per year in the years 2004 to 2016. The average would be 52.000 people more than the change of the natural change of population without this influence. The past and current migration also indirectly effects the size of population considering the amount of deaths but also births in the United Kingdom. Further the immigration to the UK has been higher than emigration from the UK since the early 1990s. The number of immigrants in 2015 was more than double that of emigrants, while the number of immigrants was 631,000 whereas the emigration amounted to 298,000 people. Due to the enlargement of the European Union, the United Kingdom had its highest level of immigration ever in 2014. 632,000 people immigrated this year. Interestingly, however, this figure did not continue to rise, but fell back to 588,000 in 2016, with emigration rising to 339,000 (Office for National Statistics, 2019).

With the figure of roughly 70 million inhabitants, the population of the United Kingdom represents 0.87% of the total world population. Further is documented that the United Kingdom is rank 21 by population in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population. With a total area of 241,930 km2 (93,410 square miles) it has a population density of 277 per km2 (717 inhabitants per mi2). Of the 66,926,312 inhabitants, an estimated 81.4% live in urban areas and 18.6% in rural areas. The average age in the UK is 40.3 years (Worldometers, 2019). By comparison, Japan's average age is 46.3%, making it the country with the world's highest average age (Statista, 2019).

The age structure of the United Kingdom can be divided into five different categories.

The first of these categories encompasses the age group in the United Kingdom, which is between 0-14 years old. This part accounts for 17.53% of the population and consists of 5,819,363 times and 5,532,123 females. The second category encompasses the age group in the United Kingdom, which is between 15-24 years old. This part accounts for 11.09% of the population and consists of 5,819,363 times and 5,532,123 females. The third of these categories encompasses the age group in the United Kingdom, which is between 25-54 years old. This part accounts for 40.55% of the population and consists of 5,819,363 times and 5,532,123 females.

The fourth category encompasses the age group in the United Kingdom, which is between 55-64 years old. This part accounts for 11.98% of the population and consists of 5,819,363 times and 5,532,123 females. The fifth of these categories encompasses the age group in the United Kingdom, which is 65 years and above.

This part accounts for 18.04% of the population and consists of 5,819,363 times and 5,532,123 females (Indexmundi, 2019).

The United Kingdom offers a Population growth rate of 0.52%. As a comparison, South Sudan has currently the highest growth rate with 3.83, whereas Cook Island in the south Pacific has a negative growth rate from -2.79 (Indexmundi, 2019).

On 1000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom comes a proportion of foreigners of 2.5 migrants (Indexmundi, 2019). Christianity is the predominant religion with 59.5%, followed with 4.4% Muslims, 1.3% Hinduism, 2% followers of other faiths, 7.2% unspecified and 25.7% atheists (Indexmundi, 2019).

A change in the population structure of a country is completely normal and necessary. The population of the United Kingdom is also affected by these changes, as the coming decades will show. These changes in the population will be characterized by lower birth rates, as is the case in many industrialized countries, and higher life expectancy, so the UK is not an isolated case either.

Longevity sounds positive at first, but together with declining birth rates, the proportion of the population of employable age is falling and the proportion of people of retirement age is slowly increasing. The larger a population is, the more productive it can be; however, reinsurances must also be made in respect of sustainability, the provision of social services such as education, health care and housing (Office for National Statistics, 2019).

2.2 GDP in the United Kingdom

With a GDP of 2,809.91bn USD in 2019 the United Kingdom (Statistics Times, 2019)plays relatively far above with. On place seven it lies behind the United States, China, Japan, Germany, India and France (Statistics Times, 2019). Because this is the projected GDP based on projection by International Monetary Fund (IMF) outlook October 2018 for year 2019 and 2023, it is reasonable to mention the United Kingdom’s GDP of 2017, which was 2,637,87 bn USD (Worldometers, 2019).

The growth rate of the United Kingdom in 2017 was 1.79%, the GDP per capita with a population of 66,181,585 people was 42,590 USD, which represents an increase of 513 $ from 42,078 $ in 2016. This corresponds to a change in GDP per capita of 1.2% (Worldometers, 2019).

2.3 Households in the United Kingdom

According to the Office for National Statistics, the United Kingdom had 27.2 million households in 2017, resulting in an average household size of 2.4 million.

In 2017 there were 19.0 million families in the United Kingdom, which is an increase of 15% from 16.6 million in 1996. With 12.9 million families, the spouse or partner family remains the most common in 2017, with the fastest growing partner family.

In 2017, 3.9 million people lived alone between the ages of 16 and 64; a larger share was male (58.5%); 3.8 million people lived alone at the age of 65 and over, but a larger share (66.5%) was female. Young men were more likely to live with their parents than young women; around 32% of men aged 20-34 lived with their parents, compared with 20% of women aged 20-34 in 2017. “In 2017, the most common family type in the UK was the married or civil partner couple family (12.9 million families). Opposite-sex couples were most likely to be in married couple families whereas same-sex couples were most likely to be in cohabiting couple families. This is likely to be because civil partnerships and marriages between same-sex couples in particular, are relatively new legal union statuses (Office for National Statistics, 2019).” In 2017 there were 12.9 million married or registered couples in the UK, therefore it continues to be the most common type of family. The second largest family was the couple family with 3.3 million families, followed by 2.8 million single parents (Office for National Statistics, 2019).

2.4 United Kingdom Media Usage Internet

The majority of households in the United Kingdom has access to different forms of media. This includes Internet, TV or Radio. In the UK in 2019, 99%, i.e. virtually all adults aged 16-44, used the Internet, whether for recreational or professional purposes. If we compare this figure with that of adults aged over 75, we find that this group accounts for just under half of the total, 47%. Furthermore, 7.5% of adults have never used the Internet in 2019, compared to 8.4% in 2018. So, there is an increase in the internet usage, even in the older generations.

91% of adults in the United Kingdom have used the internet recently in 2019 compared to 90% in 2018. So, there has been a slight increase. In 2019, the number of adults with disabilities using the internet recently exceeded 10 million for the first time this means 78% of disabled adults in the United Kingdom were using the internet altogether. The regions with the highest Internet usage in 2019 were London and the South East with 93%, while Northern Ireland had only 87%, which represents the lowest figure for the United Kingdom as a whole. 95% of adults aged 16 to 74 in the UK in 2018 were recent internet users, the third highest figure in the EU as a whole. Talking about the households in the United Kingdom it is to say, that in 2018, 90% of households had internet access. This has begun to weaken in recent years and has only risen by one percentage point since 2016. However, household Internet access has risen by 33 percentages since 2006. Further, since 2015, fixed broadband has remained the most popular type of Internet connection in households, with 98% of households with Internet access having this particular form of connectivity in 2018.

Finally, it is to say, that households with an adult aged 65 and over had the lowest share of Internet access at 59% in 2018. However, these households also recorded the highest growth in Internet access, 23 percentage points more than in 2012, compared with 10 percentage points for all households.

2.5 United Kingdom Media Usage TV

In the United Kingdom, television viewing rates are very high, with 91 per cent of the population watching television more than once a week. The UK television sector is undergoing significant change, mainly as a result of the changes in media usage described at the outset, which can currently be related mainly to technological advances. On the one hand, it is strongly affected by the switchover from analogue to digital terrestrial television in 2012, which means that all households had to switch to multi-channel television this year. Furthermore, with the growth of e.g. streaming services, there was a high fragmentation on different platforms in terms of the way households receive their linear TV broadcasts. Last but not least, these developments have led to a shift in consumers' viewing habits. This means that due to the various technical possibilities such as catch-up, video-on-demand and streaming services, BBCiplayer, Youtube, Netflix and Amazon Prime, which can be accessed via several devices such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops, watching linearly is developing towards non-linear consumption. The television market has diversified considerably in recent years. 18.69 million households have access to digital terrestrial TV, 11.28 million only to terrestrial television, 4.15 million households have cable reception, 2.25 million households receive YouView, 1.4 million households use other satellites, that is former sky users, who now have access to digital terrestrial services, 1.41 million households use Freesat and 8.82 million households are sky customers (Media Landscapes, 2019).

It may be assumed that the public service broadcasting channels are hardly frequented any more as a result of this, which would, however, be wrong. Although there is such a wide variety of program possibilities, the share was 51 percent between 2012 and 2016. Public service means BBC One, BBC Two, ITV/STV/UTV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. BBC is the most successful public broadcaster for news in Europe, with a reach of 67 per cent per week via TV and radio. The costs of an advertisement of about 30 seconds can cost from 3.800 up to 38.000 USD, depending on the time the advertisement is shown. During the morning it costs about 3000 USD, during lunch time 6000 USD, but the highest rates have to be paid during peak time in the evening, which can go up to 38.000 USD per 30 second advertisement (Stewart, 2017).

If one looks at the situation a little further away, the picture emerges that, despite the major changes that are taking place, the time of television consumption is only declining comparatively slowly. In terms of figures, the television time in 2016 fell from 242 to 212 minutes (Media Landscapes, 2019). Nowadays, consumers can decide for themselves what they want to see, when they want to see it and where they want to see it. this development, which also goes hand in hand with the increase in broadband connections, led to smart tv overtaking timers and recording devices (PVRs) in 2018. with the internet came a series of free and subscribable on-demand services, which were used by 39 million households in 2018. With the spread of internet-enabled devices on the rise, people will find it much easier to use the on- demand services on these devices as well (Media Landscapes, 2019).

The general television net profit of the year 2017 were 3.9bn USD. Since the market of the United Kingdom is the fourth largest in the world and the largest in Europe, the profits there are correspondingly high. Advertising expenditure in 2017 amounted to USD 28.31 billion. However, since 2010, digital advertising has had the highest cost in the United Kingdom. The cost of advertising on the internet rose to roughly USD 21.53 billion in 2017. Social media advertising costs rose to 16.47 bn USD (Statista, 2017).

2.6 United Kingdom Media Usage Radio

Radio is one of the strongest and most trustworthy news and entertainment media in the United Kingdom with clear distinctiveness. Roughly 90 percent of the adult population over 15 years of age consume this medium at least once a week, so it has remained stable over other media that have suffered heavy losses. The average user listens to 183 minutes of radio per day, per week the number is 21 hours and 24 minutes. The most popular stations are those that play a lot of music, because 63 percent of people listen to the radio for musical accompaniment of everyday life. The trend, which also ensures that many people access internet services in order to watch television, does not leave the medium radio unscathed. despite the high market penetration, listeners are gradually beginning to switch to internet streaming services. When the question is raised, which radio station is the most successful one, the most common the stations with the most listeners is meant. Following this approach, for the United Kingdom it is BBC, which offers a cornucopia of channels and has a market share of a total 59 percent. Starting with the BBC Radio 2 with 28 percent or 15.3 million listeners and BBC Radio 4 with 21 percent or 11 million listeners each week. At place three there is Heart with 9.6 million listeners each week. On place 4, the radio station aiming at a younger target group than the other stations. there is BBC Radio 1 with a market share of 18 percent or 9.3 million weekly listeners. Furthermore, BBC Ulster (36 percent), BBC Scotland (18 percent) and BBC Wales (13 percent) are very successful regionally (Media Landscapes, 2019), (Cridland, 2019).

2.7 United Kingdom Media Usage Newspaper

The newspaper is still a great medium to reach many people every day, but newspapers have not been the latest medium to inform themselves for a long time. Every day is a new day that comes out with the latest information. That's why people must buy a new copy every day, so the newspaper has also become a big competition as a medium for obtaining information. The hardest competition comes today due to the progressive technological development to a large extent from the Internet. Anyone can read articles online for free. In return, users can see ads, pop- ups or even a video, but they do not have to pay any money in the most cases.

Although some websites offer subscriptions to premium articles, most articles are free to read online.

There is a great variety of print media in the United Kingdom. It has a national press with 11 national daily newspapers and 10 Sunday sister titles to compare, that is more than in Germany, France and the USA. Since the United Kingdom consists of different kingdoms, there are many newspapers that produce regional newspapers. Seven of the national publishers publish special editions for Scotland, which in turn compete with three Scottish daily newspapers (Media Landscapes, 2019).

The national newspapers are divided into three sectors. The classification is based on different criteria, such as physical size, quantity of news, values and quality of content.

Broadsheet, more qualitative orientated, mid-market and tabloid.

Well-known British newspapers such as Daily Mail and the medium-sized newspapers of the Daily Mail and the Daily Express share a tabloid size with the "red-top" tabloids the Sun, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star. Until early 2000, all broadsheets were printed in one large format, hence the name Broadsheet. The

Independent was the first to break with tradition by reducing the size of the paper to a more manageable, "compact" format. Until recently, the Guardian was the odd size with a Berlin size but was converted to tabloid format in 2018. These changes are an indicator of savings in printing costs and seems not to be changes in the journalistic style and the values of the papers. The ABC figures for the beginning of 2018 show that the downturn in print readership is primarily impacting the popular, tabloid, and middle classes, and that the once stable rankings of broadsheets are in flux. The market leader The Sun's circulation decreased by 7.7% to 1,545,594 copies, the Daily Mail decreased by 11.13% to 1,343,142 copies, the Daily Mirror decreased by 19.55% to 583,192 copies, the Daily Star decreased by 11.61% to 391,988 copies and the Express is down by 7.08% to 364,721 copies. The picture on the broadsheet market is mixed, with smaller drops and the growth of Saturday newspapers to the volumes of the once typically strong Sunday titles. The Times scored best with a lower Circulation of 2.37 percent to 440,558, the Daily Telegraph lost its lead position and fell 18.4 percent to 385,346, and the Guardian fell 2.58 percent to 152,714.

Sunday midmarket and tabloid publications fell between 6.45 percent and 19.45 percent. With the notable exception of the Sunday Telegraph, which declined 16.88 percent, Sunday Broadsheets reported smaller declines of 2.7 percent for the Times and 4.87 percent for the Observer, which is the Sunday version of the Guardian (Media Landscapes, 2019).

Some newspaper publishers jump on the bandwagon of progress in order not to run into danger of losing the connection. For example, there are offers to purchase a tablet for a small monthly additional payment, on which the print articles can also be easily consumed. This type of promotion is aimed at existing customers. But also new customers are advertised, because the newspaper publishers that have existed for many years know how to place their articles well on the Internet.

With the mixing of print and digital newspapers, printed circulations are no longer a reliable means of quantifying newspaper reach due to readers' increasing use of digital platforms to access news. Although the variety of different digital audience measurement systems in use makes benchmarking difficult, many newspapers are successfully widening their audience online. A market report produced in 2016 for the News Media Association showed that reader behavior is altering with the digital audience of many newspapers that are now larger than the print audience. 75 percent of adults read papers online every month, and digital platforms increase a newspaper's readership by an average of 38 percent (Media Landscapes, 2019).

2.8 United Kingdom Media usage Social Media

Only Luxembourg with 79.5 percent and Denmark with 96.9 percent are ahead of the United Kingdom in terms of internet penetration rate. It shares third place with the Netherlands, the third highest Internet penetration rate in the EU with 94.8 percent.

According to ONS statistics, internet penetration is 92 per cent, with 89 per cent of adults using the internet in the last 3 months, while only 9 per cent of UK adults have never used the internet. However, the situation is quite different for the younger generation. 99 percent of under-35s regularly use the internet. In 2017, 76 percent of British consumers possessed a smartphone, followed by notebooks with 64 percent and tablets with 58 percent. Smartphone ownership among under the people aged 55 is very high. 96 percent of the people aged 16-34, 88 percent for the people aged 35-54 and 47 percent for the people aged 55-64. The total digital audience in the UK on laptops, desktops or mobile devices in March 2017 was 50.4 million. This can be split between 46.5 million people accessing it via laptops and desktops and 36.2 million people on mobile devices. The average monthly usage in March 2017 will be 83 hours online per person. Much of this time is devoted to the use of work or those who regularly use the Internet in a professional manner. The most frequently used brands for social media and messaging are Facebook with 65 percent, YouTube with 46 percent, Facebook Messenger with 37 percent, WhatsApp with 33 percent and Twitter with 25 percent. With a special focus on social media, Facebook attracts the largest audience with 39.7 million people, more than three quarters of active Internet users. The next largest locations are Twitter with 21.9 million and Instagram with 19.4 million (Media Landscapes, 2019).

[...]

Excerpt out of 47 pages

Details

Title
The Media Landscape and the Influence of Cultures on Advertising in the United Kingdom
College
Stralsund University of Applied Sciences  (Wirtschaft)
Grade
1,3
Year
2019
Pages
47
Catalog Number
V1150624
ISBN (eBook)
9783346557384
ISBN (Book)
9783346557391
Language
English
Keywords
Advertising, Media Survey, Hofstede Cultural Model
Quote paper
Anonymous, 2019, The Media Landscape and the Influence of Cultures on Advertising in the United Kingdom, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1150624

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