Continent divides on the box

THE British swoon with delight over a television commercial showing a balding man who cannot get a photo-booth to work and instead loses himself in the pleasures of a good cigar. The French avidly follow the saga of two grandmothers holding forth on the shortcomings of a yoghurt. Neither ad is considered suitable for any other country.

That is the picture all over Europe. Films that aren't home-grown are referred to by advertising executives as NIHs - "not invented here" - and are frowned upon.

A study last autumn by the Alice advertising agency in conjunction with the Ipsos research institute asked 600 consumers from Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands and Italy to watch 48 ads from all over Europe, all of which had won international awards. Even though the ads had been translated, the consumers liked the films from their own countries best.

The consumers only felt able to apply the label "pan-European" to a few of the advertisements. The films which held their attention were the ones with the simplest situations and the ones which appealed to their emotions or humour. Five of the 10 best-liked films were British. Other popular commercials were a Spanish ad which shows a dog called Pippin packing her bags because she feels neglected by her television addict of a master; the Levi film in which a playboy uses his jeans to tow a couple in a car and takes advantage of the situation to seduce the young woman; and the one about a blushing boy who has just bought some condoms from a woman pharmacist. Alain Cayzac, chairman of RSCG-France said: "There are certain 'duty-free' campaigns, which are truly international, such as those by Marlboro, Benetton, Volkswagen and certain perfumes. They show real imagination, valued in all latitudes, and they put across for each of their products a feeling of serenity, fraternity, confidence or beauty."

But most commercials do not cross borders well. Francoise Bonnal, head of strategic planning at Young and Rubicam, said: "Each country has its own rhythms and sensibilities: the northern countries attach more importance to a rational element, while the south is more sensitive to form. The French and the British think humour and variety are more important, and the Spanish and Italians look for balance."

But how do you fuse the sparkling, light-hearted image sought by the French, the British sense of humour, the seriousness required by the Germans and the subtle effectiveness beloved of the Spanish and Italians?

One solution consists of producing a script which is identical in each country, with different actors and a translated soundtrack.

This was done with Wash & Go, the shampoo made by Procter & Gamble. The commercial used different actresses -blonde, brunette, sexy or the girl-next-door -supposedly in keeping with the sensibilities of the countries in which it was shown; France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

However, if the production of ads on a pan-European scale is what many want, some members of the profession remain prudent. "We should not fall into schemes for the profit of technocrats thus emasculating creativity and production," said Jacques Arnaud, managing director of the Franco-American production company.

He is among a number of advertising professionals who are calling for the European Commission to prevent the harmonisation of national regulations which could extend to bans everywhere on commercials for alcohol, children's toys, insurance and medicines.

And if tastes and regulations are different, the structure of the publicity markets is hardly homogenous. In Portugal, where an ad ' rarely costs more than £20,000 (elsewhere the minimum is nearer £100,000), production houses frequently have ¹ to "handle the art of the limited budget", according to Joao Rapazote Fernades, director of the production company, Panoramica 35. He said: "European advertising should not be allowed to crush small countries which cannot participate in the creation of Europe-wide campaigns."

© Le Monde

Find the answers to the following questions.

1. What point is illustrated by a balding British man and two French grandmothers?
2. What are NIH’s – and how are they regarded?
3. Who are the following people and what views do they express? ( Alain Cayzac, Francoise Bonnal, Jacques Arnaud, Joao Rapazote Fernades)
4. What is significant about Procter & Gamble’s Wash & Go commercial?

(6) The world according to Ernest

The methods used to promote and sell drugs are under attack, putting Glaxo, the world's second-biggest pharmaceuticals company, right in the line of fire. We asked the firm's chief executive, Ernest Mario, for his view.

CISM may be nothing new for the g industry, but the ferocity of recent attacks is starting to worry even the most Hardened executive. The industry stands accused of conducting promotional drives disguised as educational and fact-finding campaigns; of offering doctors, not pens and notepads but hard cash; of distorting data to suit its promotional needs; of blurring side-effects; and, perhaps worst as far as insiders are concerned, of bad-mouthing rival products and unnecessarily alarming doctors and patients.

Even Glaxo, long admired for its marketing, shocked the industry when in February 1990 it had a letter published in the Lancet saying that it had conducted tests on Omeprazole, a rival product made by Sweden's Astra, which had shown that the drug caused cancer. Such "knocking copy" had previously been taboo. More recently some doctors have raised worries about how hard Glaxo is pushing its products and whether some of its promotional material might even be confusing.

A question The Economist therefore asked Ernest Mario, an outspoken American, was:

• Is Glaxo pushing too hard?The Lancet letter, claims Mr Mario, was not a marketing ploy but a genuine attempt to bring to light important medical information. Naturally, he says he disapproves of public mud-slinging. But he admits that in the past few years pharmaceutical marketing has changed — often under Glaxo's leadership.

In the early 1980s Glaxo broke the mould by launching Ranitidine, its anti-ulcer cure, expensively around the world, rather than more conventionally in national markets. Glaxo was also one of the first to advertise directly to patients on American television, in a campaign about ulcers that 1 was seen by 12m people and generated 581,000 visits to doctors. Ranitidine (branded as Zantac) is now the world's top-selling drug, accounting for half of Glaxo's £2.9 billion ($5.1 billion) sales.

According to Mr Mario the laws of the marketplace now apply as much to pharmaceuticals as to consumer electronics: once armed with a new product, a company must establish its market share as quickly as 1 possible, before rival firms produce competitive brands. There are already four drugs similar to Ranitidine. In the past, drugs brought in good profits for a decade or more.