They were exposed to choices of products they never dreamed were possible.

A company I know was hired to launch a new washing detergent in Poland. The product formulation was researched, the name, the packaging, and the advertising. Everything tested perfectly.

The product was launched. Fabulous distribution. Accurate pricing. A huge success. The product flew out of the stores.

Until the advertising started.

Sales began to go down.

The strategy was researched again. The advertising was researched. No problems.

Must not be enough media weight - media weight was doubled. Then tripled.

Sales went down even more.

In fact, there was a perfect inverse correlation between increasing ad spend and decreasing sales.

Finally the truth was learned. In a focus group, an old lady said, "Why should I buy your product? You're advertising it, aren't you?"

Huh?

The light dawned. During Communism, there were limited products available. Remember those photos of people queuing up to buy sausages? Whenever a product was put on the shelf, it sold out immediately.

Except for bad products. Which no one wanted to buy. They just sat there. So the Communist government did the only thing they could to sell the bad products. They advertised them.

So a whole generation grew up thinking that the only products that were advertised were bad ones.

And no one would buy this laundry detergent.

A year later, this had all changed. Polish consumers became as sophisticated as anyone.

What can we learn from this?

l Consumers worldwide react differently to advertising. In England, the verbal pun dominates. In the US, the jingle, or the hard sell. In France, sex sells (actually, that works everywhere). In Japan, the ads don't seem to make any sense at all (except to a Japanese!). It is the cultural values that a nation brings to the ad that make it effective or not.

l Consumers' feelings about consumerism evolve. No one is static. After just a year, Polish consumers had evolved. They learned, matured, and approached advertising in a different way.

l Advertising reflects a society's culture. As a society evolves, the culture evolves, and the advertising changes.

l At any given time, countries are in a slightly different place from each other. Countries mature and develop at different rates, and it is impossible to generalise about the "global" consumer's feeling about advertising. There is no such thing as a global consumer.

Let's think about these last two points a bit more.

All countries are in different stages of cultural development. We can generalise by talking about four stages, although there are probably an infinite number.

In Stage 1, the country is isolated from outside influences. Japan in the 17th and 18th centuries, China in the 1950s, Eastern Europe after WW II, parts of Africa and even Burma today.

A country in this stage has advertising that is very reflective of its national culture, simply because the country has had nothing else to shape it. In Stage 2, the country is opened to the outside world. A strange thing happens. The country usually rejects its own heritage, and blindly adopts that of the outside, usually whether appropriate or not. Consumers buy imported goods, sometimes paying significantly more for an inferior product, just for the cachet of buying an imported product. This happened in Japan after it was opened to the West in 1862, eastern Europe after the fall of the Wall ... Or look at Shanghai two years ago.

Then counter-reaction sets in. "Why must we buy imported products," people say, "Aren't our locally made products good enough?" Consumers reject products from the more developed countries and proudly trumpet their native values.

Lastly, the country achieves a balance. Consumers understand the values imported products can bring, but also learn to appreciate their own locally produced culture for its inherent value, not just because it is their own. Advertising shows a sense of humour regarding the native culture, people are neither ashamed of it nor fiercely defensive of it. Advertising becomes more natural, and more effective.

Obviously, none of this is cut and dried. A country, as reflected by its ads, can be in several stages at any one time. You might want to consider what cultural stage Thailand is in today. It is an important question, because it will help you create a more successful marketing and product-development strategy. No consumer is alike; no culture is alike. The challenge to creating success is to discover where your potential customers are at any given point in time.

Eric Rosenkranz

Eric Rosenkranz's consultancy "e.three" (www.ethree-asia.com) helps companies create success by identifying customer needs and satisfying them. Please write or call Eric at er@ethree-asia.com or (02) 343 1623.