The standardization of international advertising: An intercultural comparison of the iconographic code

Due to the increasing information overload, consumers have less time availa ble for reading an advertisement or watching a commercial. This requires a greater reading speed, which can best be achieved through the increased use of pictures in advertisements. A picture can be read especially quickly if it makes use of iconographic codes. These codes allow the recipient to und erstand the picture without recourse to intervening transformations, just a s if it were reality itself. In order for the same advertisement to be usab le internationally, it must employ interculturally valid iconographic codes for the visualization of a given message (e.g., 'Carribean freshness' for a bar of soap or 'driving safety' for an automobile). A comparison of selec ted iconographic codes employed in Germany, France, and the USA demonstrate d that they differ considerably from country to country. Therefore it is di fficult to standardize advertisements using iconographic codes. The culture -specific ways of understanding pictures make their intercultural use probl ematic.