Localized Advertising: How These 5 Big Brands Attract Specific Audiences

Brands use all sorts of strategies to get people to buy their products. From influencer marketing campaigns to investing in a great landing page, what one brand needs to engage with their target market may differ from another brand. For example, at a given moment in time, a giveaway by influencers could push a food brand forward whereas a customized augmented reality filter may do the trick for a beauty product. Indeed, branding is a collaborative process that involves understanding your business and planning how to build trust with your audience (we’ll get to localized advertising in a few seconds).

 

What every brand also needs is a specific target audience. Your target audience is who you’ll be communicating your marketing strategy to and who you’ll be engaging with on social media, emails, and even on your blogs and advertisements. Target audiences can be categorized based on their personality, attitudes, opinions, interests, and values (psychographic targeting), based on their gender, age, ethnicity, religion, education, and income (demographic targeting), based on their city, state, and country (geographic targeting), or based on their consumer behavior patterns (behavioral targeting).

 

Now let’s go back to the title of this article: localized advertising: it’s basically when brands advertise to a specific target audience. Today, you’ll be taking a look at wonderful examples of localized advertising, so that you can learn from these wonderful brands that chose to speak to a specific target audience as a way to promote sales for their brands. Click on the bolded subheadings to enjoy the ad on youtube.

 

#1 Taco Bell 

Gidget is the name of the Chihuahua who starred in Taco Bell’s ads from 1997 to 2000. Ask any American who lived through that time about the ‘Taco Bell Dog’ and they’ll say it’s iconic, cute, and lovable. But there’s more to the canine pop culture icon voiced by famous actor and comedian Carlos Alazraqui: it’s a Chihuahua, a popular dog breed in Mexico. Hence, Gidget was consciously selected to be the icon and mascot for Taco Bell as Chihuahuas pair perfectly with their advertising campaign’s Spanish-speaking target audience, along with their advertising campaign tagline “Yo Quiero Taco Bell”, which means “I want Taco Bell” in Spanish. What a great example of localized advertising using demographic targeting.

 

#2 Nutella

Most Nutella commercials feature mothers preparing breakfast for their children with the aid of Nutella, promoting Nutella as being made from quality ingredients and as making breakfast fast, easy to prepare, and tasty. However, in India, the world-famous sweetened hazelnut cocoa spread company decided to add another fact: that Nutella isn’t just for bread but for Indian roti too, as evidenced by the ad’s tagline “Best had with roti or bread”— another good example of demographic targeting— communicating a specific message to an Indian audience who might have roti instead of bread for breakfast. 

 

#3 Coca Cola

“So we decided to give back through surprising activities during their busiest time of the year.” 

Featuring various hardworking mall workers, Coca Cola’s 2016 Christmas ad for their Philippines market is an ad like no other because the makers of this ad truly understand that in the Philippines, the family is a super important aspect of people’s lives. Knowing that Filipinos are family-oriented, the ad explored the mall workers’ feelings about their respective families and how they feel about not being able to spend Christmas eve with their loved ones…and surprised them with gifts for their families.

By doing so, Coca Cola successfully convinces Filipinos that it respects their family-oriented values and that it cares about their feelings, as displayed by the beverage company’s generosity. In this way, Coca Cola utilized both demographic targeting, focusing on ethnicity and religion (Filipino and Christianity).

In fact, Coca Cola is a genius at localized advertising, creating ads and commercials that touch specific audiences’ interests, values, and issues. Check out this one on bringing India and Pakistan together and this Coca Cola ad that communicates its message to energetic young people who are passionate about romance, playing sports, and creating or listening to upbeat music.

 

#4  Nike

The director of Nike’s 2020 CNY ad should receive a standing ovation for his or her idea: there is a Chinese custom of declining money from loved ones who keep insisting for us to take it, and Nike took this up a notch by having an aunt run after her niece as a way to force her to accept the 红包 (little red envelope). Things take a hilarious turn in this ad, and we won’t spoil it for you. Click on the bolded Nike subheading to watch the ad. Obviously, all the running that takes place in this Nike ad is being done in Nike shoes.

This Lunar New Year ad named “The Great Chase” also shows how important it is to always tell a meaningful story if your aim is to engage audiences, and in this case, those of Chinese ethnicity are their target audience.

 

#5 Indomie

Knowing that they have plenty of young fans in Nigeria, Indomie cleverly tailored their 2014 ad to rap music-loving youngsters in that country. As the youngsters tune into their radios, a catchy rap starts playing…a rap about oriental fried noodles that “…taste…so delicious, [and are] so spicy and so nutritious”. When listeners call back the radio station to ask about the rap, the radio announcer mentions that he had been rapping about…Indomie!

 

This localized advertising by Indomie is a brilliant way to persuade young, trendy Africans to be inspired by the Indonesian instant noodle brand!

 

Conclusion

As long as you’re crafting a marketing strategy that communicates to a group of people based on factors such as their age, cultural background, values, personality, attitudes, and religion, you’re localizing your strategy, be it in terms of your overall marketing strategy or in terms of your advertising. Therefore, localized advertising and marketing don’t just take the form of videos and commercials but appear in email marketing, customized landing pages, billboards, product descriptions, social media posts, and detailed blogs too.

Who is YOUR specific target audience? Let’s collaborate to find out who they are and what we can do to engage with them successfully using localized advertising and marketing.