International ideals

International.

If I could have a word of the month... scratch that, year; "international" would be it.

For some reason, for the past few weeks, the world suddenly became so real for me. I don't know if it came from (re)reading Eat, Pray, Love; deciding where I wanted to study abroad next year; or my friends from the U.S. coming to visit me and exclaiming over how "different" and "Canadian" everything is (side note: there is not really a difference. The U.S. and Canada could be the same country... Luckily for Canada, they're not). But the fact that an entire world exist out there and I haven't even scratched the surface of exploring all of it struck a nerve. I can live (mostly) anywhere in the world (there is, of course, a few countries that wouldn't look kindly on an American crossing their borders). But sitting there, thinking that I have spent 19 years of my life contained in two countries, on one continent, is so depressing. There is an entire world out there, so many experiences to be had, yet many people never leave the safety of their country? I guess you could say I officially have wanderlust.

This, combined with Del's blog about "New Marketing", or how quickly marketers are forced to respond to constantly evolving pop culture, made me think about international marketing, and how difficult it must be for a single company to target consumers in different countries, raised in totally different cultures, with vastly different pop cultures. Is there a Pandora's box of international marketing? A single advertising campaign that transcends borders, surpasses cultural barriers and delivers an identical message to consumers in all corners of the world?

The logical side of me says no. The world is far too different, the people have such vastly different backgrounds, for a campaign like that to ever be successful.

However, the idealist in me looks at the world now compared to 30 years ago. We can communicate with anyone in the world in nanoseconds. Ideas and trends, thanks to blogs and the internet, can start in China and spread to Brazil in moments.

So is culture becoming one? Are the lines between countries and divisions in beliefs slowly corroding away? Along the same lines, shouldn't the barriers in marketing be doing the same? Can't we create a ad that encompasses the beliefs of many different people in many different countries who are connected solely in the fact they are connected?

I believe this is becoming possible. And its up to the next generation of marketers to create it