Right messages for the right site: On-line creative strategies by Japanese multinational corporations

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group inJournal of Marketing Communications on (2003), available online at:http://www.tandfonline.com/http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1352726032000129908The aim of this research was to compare the on-line creative strategies of Japanese multi-national corporations that are used at home and in foreign markets in the light of the standardization versus localization debate. Product-based websites created by the same Japanese firms were examined in Japan, Spain and the USA using a cross-cultural content analysis research framework. The findings show that Japanese multinational corporations are likely to localize their web communications through tailoring on-line creative strategies according to the target market. Domestically, soft sell approaches are used more than hard sell approaches in Japan, whilst the relation reverses in the USA. Spain equally weighs both approaches. Cross-culturally, while Japan tends to employ soft sell approaches more than the other countries, there is no significant difference across the three countries. On the other hand, the USA significantly differs from the others in terms of the usage of hard sell approaches. The dimension of creative executions in Spain seems more limited.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation, Toky