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Aflac

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AFLAC introduced the AFLAC duck in the U.S. market to build brand awareness there. However, AFLAC’s brand awareness is very high in Japan. Should AFLAC use the same advertising campaign in Japan as it does in the United States? Is there any value to having identical advertising in both markets? Having introduced the maneki neko duck in Japan, should it now introduce it is the U.S. market as well?
Basically, AFLAC should definitely not use the same advertising campaign in Japan as it does in the US and likewise for the maneki neko duck in the US as it does in Japan, for two reasons: firstly, AFLAC is using advertising in the two countries to accomplish very different goals. In the US, AFLAC is trying to raise awareness about its products …show more content…

So too has AFLAC, Japan. Apart from that AFLAC should not use the same advert campaign from the US in Japan is because of the differences in culture. Corresponding to this the Japanese already has a brand awareness of AFLAC, and the introduction of a quacking duck might seem, well, weird. Think of the introduction of a duck mascot for Coca Cola, McDonalds, or even Prudential, it would definitely be a joke for recognised companies to use such hilarious for their advertisements. It is already statically proven that AFLAC in Japan is well recognised working through 19,600 independent insurance agencies and having its products sold by an army of licensed sales associates, some 115,000 strong. So why should AFLAC then introduce the US based duck advertising campaign? This will only bring disrupt to the core values within the society. If we were to introduce the same advertising campaign in Japan, it will cause cultural shock to the local people whether in education or in time. Age plays a role too in this situation. Since Japan is a fast developing country with the statistic of older people ratio more than the younger, it is then a wise choice to then pick a mature advertising technique rather than going for a young and lively advertisements for the older generations to grasp. Probably less than 50% of the older generation will get the real meaning of the advisement if it was to be portrayed in such a way.

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