Marketing Standardization and the Internet Revolution

Abstract

An old debate has been going on for decades about the respective advantages of standardization versus adaptation of marketing strategies for global corporations. A lot of literature has dealt upon the circumstances that should conduct an enterprise to adopt one strategy rather than the other. Most researchers have considered that the choice of standardizing product, price, distribution and communication policies, should mainly be based on the nature of the marketed product and subsidiarily on the cultural an structural differences between the various countries served by the multinational corporation.

This paper attempts to show how the use of internet by about half the world population, with company web sites accessible universally, has reduced the potential for unique adaptation of marketing programs to specific markets, and pushes multinational corporation to greater standardization of their marketing strategies, especially in the areas of pricing and message communication.